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THE   FUTURE 
CITIZEN 


BY 
F.  A.  MYERS 


It  is  the  mind  that  makes  the  man, 
and  our  vigor  is  in  our  immortal  souls. 


Ovid 


BOSTON 

SHERMAN,  FRENCH  ^  COMPANY 

1911 


V, 


Copyright,   I9II 
Sherman,  French  &  Company 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

Introduction 

I.  Mental  Inheritance     -         -  -  1 

11.  Marriage     -         -         -         -  -  16 

III.  Race  Suicide         .         -         .  .  22 

IV.  Cost  of  the  Child        -         -  -  29 
V.  Boy 34 

VI.  Education    -         -         -         -  -  41 

VII.  Parental  Mistakes       -         -  -  58 

VIII.  Home  ------  67 

IX.  Why  Boys  Go  Wrong           -  -  73 

X.  Biology  of  Crime         -         -  -  87 

XL  Juvenile  Crimes  -         -         -  -  101 

XII.  External  Remedial  Efforts  -  113 

XIII.  Child  Labor         -         -         -  -  126 

XIV.  The  American  Spirit    -         -  -  134 
XV.  Socialism      -         -         -         -  -  146 

XVI.  Labor 156 

XVII.  Cities  a  Problem           .         -  -  169 

XVIII.  The  Church          ...  -  178 


327403 


INTRODUCTORY 

Through  all  ages  the  great  effort  has  been,  after 
the  arrival  of  the  boy  on  the  stage  of  existence,  to 
train  him  into  a  good  citizen  and  prepare  him  to 
be  a  better  angel  in  the  future  life.  The  very 
first  child  on  earth,  according  to  Genesis,  went 
violently  wrong,  and  the  weakness  of  the  flesh  he 
displayed  is  still  the  inheritance  of  all  men.  The 
problem  of  the  soul,  that  has  been  the  concern 
of  the  church  and  the  state  and  the  home  since 
Adam,  whom  God  thrust  out  into  poor  environ- 
ments as  a  curse  for  disobedience,  and  forced  on 
him  thereby  the  necessity  of  sweating  for  a  living, 
is  still  an  unsolved  problem.  However,  it  is  self- 
evident  that  frail,  feeble,  insufficient  man,  need- 
ing help  and  guidance  himself,  cannot  solve  it. 
The  problem  is  less  difficult  of  solution,  it  seems 
in  a  general  survey,  if  the  destiny  of  the  child  is 
prearranged  before  its  birth, — that  is  to  say,  a 
better,  higher,  happier,  holy  destiny; — a  matter 
that  is  quite  possible  for  man  to  do. 

NECESSITY   OF    EEPEATING  INFORMATION 

It  seems  in  this  our  day  that  with  all  sorts  of 
literature  put  before  everybody,  they  know  all 
about  this  question,  and  that  they  who  do  not 
know  it  do  not  want  to  know  it,  to  be  sure,  and 
so  any  more  said  upon  the  question  is  the  work 
of  superfluous  zeal  and  therefore  unnecessary. 
But    in    this     "developed,"    overstrained,    eager. 


INTRODUCTORY 

strenuous  time,  when  the  whole  earth  is  in  a  hurry 
to  get  money,  casting  away  simplicity  and  joy, 
exhausting  nerve  force  and  hastening  on  to  pain 
and  decay,  and  creating  as  a  consequence  the  false 
conditions  of  emulation,  inadequacy,  fickle  cus- 
toms, unhappy  and  unphilosophical  and  needless 
ambitions, — all  due  to  the  underfed  divinity  of 
rush  that  is  supreme  in  this  strenuous  commercial 
age, — some  insistence  on  the  subject  is  needful. 
Some  of  the  causes  of  poor  citizenship  are  a  de- 
cline in  old  faiths,  both  political,  religious,  and 
social ;  and  the  strenuosity  of  the  age — unnatural, 
hysterical  speed.  Herein  will  be  found  some  of  the 
present  conditions  needing  remedying,  with  some 
suggestions  as  to  how  best  correct  the  headlong, 
headstrong  age. 

NATIONAL     PERPETUITY 

Another  great  problem  of  chief  concern  now  is 
the  perpetuity  of  our  institutions,  civil  and  relig- 
ious, and  that  problem  is  possible  of  solution  only 
by  the  character  of  the  citizens.  As  the  opinions 
of  men  alter,  institutions  naturally  alter  in  har- 
mony with  the  spirit  of  the  life  supplying  and 
needing  them.  Often  men  entertain  mistaken  ideas 
and  ideals,  and  these  false  faiths  bring  on  their 
very  certain  results — no  escape.  Indeed  it  is  not  an 
easy  thing  to  be  absolutely  fair  in  belief  at  all 
times  and  under  all  conditions.  It  is  easier  to  per- 
suade oneself  into  thinking  that  the  things  he 
wants     to     believe,     or     the     things      he      wants 


INTRODUCTORY 

to  do  are  the  right  things,  and  the  right 
things  to  believe  or  to  do.  Many  things  in 
public  and  in  the  individual  conscience  are 
to  be  deplored,  for  all  things  are  not  good, 
even  if  it  is  possible  for  them  to  be.  Some 
of  these  things  are  the  changes  occurring  in  old 
fundamental  elements  of  religious  belief  and  in 
well-tried  principles  of  state  and  school  and  home. 
There  is  both  a  definite  fear  and  a  hope  in  relation 
to  the  advance  of  modern  thought  in  such  swift 
fashion,  and  men  are  debating  how  to  reconstruct 
upon  the  obsolescent  old  elementary  ideas  the 
"larger  advanced  thoughts"  (if  they  be  even  up 
to  the  label  put  upon  them)  of  the  present  time 
and  make  men  better  for  the  alterations. 

CAUSES   OF   POOR   CITIZENSHIP 

Perhaps  the  causes  of  poor  citizenship  may  be 
limited  to  three:  state,  home,  self;  and  these  will 
be  considered  in  the  following  pages.  There  will 
be  the  child  first  to  consider,  next  his  environ- 
ments, thirdly  his  training,  fourthly  the  evils  of 
the  times,  and  lastly  possible  remedies.  These 
discussions  are  rather  hints  than  careful  analyses 
and  treatment,  and  they  have  been  put  together 
in  very  great  haste,  so  that  errors  in  arrangement 
and  matter  and  facts  must  necessarily  exist,  as 
well  as  in  the  form  and  style  of  the  thought.  But 
it  is  felt  that  with  all  these  defects,  this  little 
-volume  still  may  not  be  in  vain. 


INTRODUCTORY 

FUTURE  DESTINY  OF  OUB,   COUNTRY 

It  may  be  said  that  the  future  destiny  of  our 
country  depends  upon  the  children  of  to-day  and 
the  unborn  who  will  succeed  them.  And  their 
character  will  determine  the  character  and  history 
of  the  government.  Of  course  government  is 
meant,  in  the  end,  for  the  happiness  of  the  people, 
or  should  be,  and  such  protection  should  be  ac- 
corded to  all  as  will  beget  better  men  and  women, 
happier  men  and  women,  better  citizens. 

The  causes  for  poor  citizenship  are  presented 
herein,  and  remedies  more  or  less  effective  indicated 
for  removing  these  causes.  There  is  no  exception 
to  the  law  of  decadence  in  the  world,  and  a  govern- 
ment is  no  more  stable  than  the  opinions  that 
create  and  sustain  it.  The  United  States  is  des- 
tined to  go  the  way  all  other  past  nations  have 
gone — youth,  manhood,  old  age, — and  it  will  sur- 
vive only  so  long  as  the  opinions  that  sustain  it 
have  vitality.  In  a  word,  this  is  the  destiny  of 
all  human  institutions,  for  the  reason  that  they 
are  human,  imperfect,  ephemeral,  and  no  feeble 
finite  effort  can  stay  decay.  No  observant  person 
has  failed  to  see  that  already  citizens  are  not  as 
they  used  to  be.  Why.^  This  little  volume  is  an 
attempt  to  answer  this  query,  though  in  no  full 
and  exhaustive  way. 

CHANGING  CONDITIONS 

We  have  no  longer,  it  is  clear,  the  primitive 
method  of  thought,  conditions,  needs,  or  relation- 


INTRODUCTORY 

ships — showing  changes  going  on  in  our  political 
and  social  organization  already.  Simply  chang- 
ing need  not  mean  utter  destruction  without  com- 
pensation, a  death  of  the  old  without  the  growth 
of  the  new,  like  coral,  but  it  does  mean  a  displace- 
ment of  the  old,  effete,  which  never  returns  again, 
despite  the  theory  of  metempsychosis.  There  is 
too,  great  disregard  by  too  many  persons  of  the 
basic  Old  Testament  duties,  which  are  two : — 
duties  first  to  God,  and  second  to  man.  Any  de- 
parture from  elemental  truths  must  bring  as  a 
cause  the  concomitant  results. 

DESCENDING    TO    FAULT     FINDING 

Pleasantness  is  being  eliminated  to-day  from 
our  beautiful  old  world.  We  are  growing  into 
grumbling,  criticising,  condemning,  unsatisfied, 
"calamity  howling  muckrakers,"  nosing  into  gar- 
bage trucks  and  fingering  in  sewers,  and  as  a  re- 
sult, becoming  like  the  pictures  set  before  us. 
Feeding  on  such  mental  pabulum  and  encouraging 
such  a  mental  habit,  we  cannot  grow  better.  Our 
books  and  press  are  revelations  of  sins,  while  the 
good  is  taken  for  granted,  and  even  the  pulpit 
sometimes  hurls  criticisms  and  cynicisms  at  the 
audience.  This  sort  of  scowling  and  schooling  is 
bad.  The  sentiment  is  inoculating,  leavening,  con- 
tagious. We  have  false  theories  of  education,  bad 
home  government,  bad  school  government,  bad 
laws,  untutored  press,  and  in  addition  a  multi- 
plicity of  immature  ideas  and  quack  panaceas  for 


INTRODUCTORY 

government  ills.  We  seem  to  be  partly  assimilated 
with  imported  ideas  instead  of  assimilating  them 
— ^national  metabolism.  None  of  these  things  oc- 
cur in  gross,  but  with  insensible  insinuation  year 
after  year,  as  the  growth  of  a  tree. 

"Ill  fares  the  land^  to  hastening  ills  a  prey. 
Where  wealth  accumulates,  and  men  decay. 
Princes  and  lords  may  flourish  or  may  fade, — 
A  breath  can  make  them,  as  a  breath  has  made; 
But  a  bold  peasantry,  their  country's  pride. 
When  once  destroyed,  can  never  be  supplied.'* 


THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 


CHAPTER  I 
MENTAL  INHERITANCE 

^'Poeta  nascituTy  non  fit**  has  long  been  an  ac- 
cepted axiom. 

No  education,  or  training,  or  wishing,  or  striv- 
ing, or  environment  can  eradicate  the  mixture  of 
negro  blood,  let  us  say  by  way  of  illustration, 
from  a  person  with  a  strain  of  nine-tenths  white 
blood  in  him.  In  broken  terms,  heredity — destiny 
— ^born  that  way — die  with  it  in  the  mixed  blood 
still.  So  of  family  blood,  family  traits,  physi- 
cal characteristics,  brain  qualities.  No  training 
or  environment  can  alter  them,  can  add  one  hair's 
breadth  to  one's  height,  or  change  the  color  of 
one's  hair  or  eyes,  or  deepen  the  convolutions  of 
the  brain.  These  things  are  the  unalterable  gifts 
of  parents.  And  just  so  they  gave  us  our  mental 
aptitudes,  and  our  mental  deficiencies,  and  no 
training  or  environment  can  alter  their  constitu- 
tional character.  However,  such  gifts  or  endow- 
ments as  the  child  has  can  and  should  be  made 
the  most  of.  And  that  is  all  that  laws  and  schools 
and  homes  and  churches  can  do  for  it. 

BACIAL  LIMITATIONS 

Negroes  beget  negroes,  Chinamen  beget  China- 
men, Indians  beget  Indians.  The  physical  dis- 
tinctions of  these  races  are  so  pronounced  that 
one  is  not  mistaken  for  another, — distinctions 
seen  in  the  shape  of  the  eye,  mouth,  nose,  cheeks, 

1 


■^if<: 


«  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

straight  or  curly  hair,  color,  height,  and  the  like. 
And  so,  too,  parental  endowments  of  shape  of 
body,  walk,  and  mental  characteristics  are  ob- 
servable, as  well  as  the  type  of  mental  activity, 
temper,  vitality,  and  the  like.  But  in  intimate 
relationship  to  this  destiny  of  heredity  is  also  the 
destiny  of  environment. 

The  "birth  cry"  is  for  better  birth,  better 
blood,  better  health,  better  conditions,  or  the  right 
to  choose  one's  own  parents,  if  one  may  so  speak. 
For  without  good  childhood,  there  is  poor  citizen- 
ship and  poorer  churchmanship. 

NO    ONE    CREATES    HIMSELF 

In  speaking  of  himself  St.  Augustine  said  of 
his  mother:  "I  will  not  omit  whatsoever  my  soul 
would  bring  forth  concerning  thy  handmaid,  who 
brought  me  forth,  both  in  the  flesh  that  I  might 
be  born  to  this  temporal  light,  and  in  heart  that 
I  might  be  born  to  light  eternal.  Nor  her  gifts, 
but  thine  in  her,  will  I  speak  of;  for  neither  did 
she  make  nor  educate  herself.  Thou  didst  create 
her:  nor  did  her  father  and  mother  know  what  a 
one  should  come  from  them." 

It  appears  that  Huxley  said,  in  speaking  of  the 
peculiarities  of  the  father  cropping  out  in  the 
children:  "That  illustrates  the  immutability  of 
law.  Children  inherit  certain  traits  and  capabili- 
ties. They  must  go  on  and  develop  them.  There 
is  nothing  more.  They  are  bound  by  the  elements 
which  are  born  in  them." 


MENTAL  INHERITANCE  3 

BIBLE    ON    HEREDITY 

"By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.  Do  men 
gather  grapes  of  thorns  or  figs  of  thistles?  Even 
so  every  good  tree  bringeth  forth  good  fruit;  but 
the  corrupt  tree  bringeth  forth  evil  fruit.  A  good 
tree  cannot  bring  forth  evil  fruit,  neither  can  a 
corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit.  Every  tree 
that  bringeth  not  forth  good  fruit  is  hewn  down, 
and  cast  into  the  fire.  Therefore  by  their  fruits 
ye  shall  know  them."    Matthew  7 :  16  f . 

"For  of  thorns  men  do  not  gather  figs,  nor  of 
a  bramble  bush  gather  they  grapes.  "    Luke  6  'A4i, 

"In  those  days  they  shall  say  no  more.  The 
fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes,  and  the  children's 
teeth  are  set  on  edge.  But  every  one  shall  die  for 
his  own  iniquity:  every  man  that  eateth  the  sour 
grapes,  his  teeth  shall  be  set  on  edge."  Jeremiah 
31:29f.    Ezekiell8:2. 

"Thou  shalt  not  bow  down  thyself  unto  them, 
nor  serve  them:  for  I  the  Lord  thy  God  am  a  jeal- 
ous God,  visiting  the  iniquity  of  the  fathers  upon 
the  children,  upon  the  third  and  upon  the  fourth 
generation  of  them  that  hate  me;  and  showing 
mercy  unto  thousands  of  them  that  love  me  and 
keep  my  commandments."  Exodus  20 :  5  f .  Exo- 
dus  34 :  7.      Numbers   14 :  18. 

The  well-known  story  of  the  man,  going  into 
another  country,  delivering  certain  moneys  to  his 
servants,  illustrates  this  matter  very  clearly. 
"Unto  one  he  gave  ^ve  talents,  to  another  two,  to 
another  one;  to  each  according  to  his  several  abil- 


4  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

ity."  When  the  servants  reckoned  later  with  their 
master,  it  was  found  that  the  one  with  the  five 
talents  had  "made  other  five  talents,"  and  he  that 
received  two  "gained  other  two.  But  he  that  re- 
ceived the  one  went  away  and  digged  in  the  earth, 
and  hid  his  lord's  money."  The  reward  of  the 
one  with  the  Bxe  talents  was  commendation  and 
promotion;  because  he  had  been  faithful  over  a 
few  things  he  was  set  over  many  things.  He  had 
demonstrated  his  hereditary  gifts.  The  same 
commendation  and  promotion  was  given  to  the 
man  with  the  two  talents.  It  was  the  nature  of 
the  man  with  one  talent  to  be  afraid  to  venture, 
and  he  therefore  hid  his  talent  in  the  earth.  He 
was  roundly  censured  because  he  was  a  "wicked 
and  slothful  servant."  "Take  ye  away  therefore 
the  talent  from  him,  and  give  it  unto  him  that 
hath  the  ten  talents.  For  unto  every  one  that 
hath  shall  be  given,  and  he  shall  have  abundance; 
but  from  him  that  hath  not,  even  that  which  he  hath 
shall  be  taken  away.  And  cast  ye  out  the  unprofit- 
able servant  into  the  outer  darkness:  there  shall 
be  the  weeping  and  the  gnashing  of  teeth."  This 
Scriptural  lesson  approves  money-getting  and 
condemns  slothfulness  and  thriftlessness.  Mat- 
thew 25:15f. 

In  the  apocryphal  books,  III  Hermes  Similitude, 
chapter  eighth,  the  same  lesson  is  brought  forth 
by  the  figure  of  the  branches  of  a  willow  instead 
of  talents.  "Can  the  Ethiopian  change  his  skin, 
or  the  leopard  his  spots.''  then  may  ye  also  do 
good,  that  are  accustomed  to  do  evil."  Jeremiah 
13:23. 


MENTAL  INHERITANCE  5 

HEREDITY    DETERMINES    EVERY    ONE 

The  education  of  a  child  should  begin  with  his 
grandmother.  Holmes  said  it  should  begin  "a 
hundred  years  before  he  is  born."  Aside  from  the 
educational  idea  in  this  observation,  it  imparts  a 
sense  of  destiny  determined  by  the  parents.  The 
child  is  what  the  cell  in  which  he  originates  pre- 
determines. By  fate's  law  he  can  be  no  other. 
The  birth  cell  is,  of  course,  that  which  is  peculiar 
to  his  parents.  He  comes  into  life  so  much,  no 
less  and  no  more,  and  whatever  that  is  it  is  capable 
of  so  much  training,  no  more  and  no  less.  These 
assertions,  so  familiar  in  this  day  of  investiga- 
tion, of  course  need  no  confirmation  by  illustra- 
tions or  arguments.  The  students  of  the  day  refer 
all  life  to  its  cell  origin. 

Holmes'  "Elsie  Venner"  is  based  on  the  idea 
of  the  predestinating  influence  of  the  cell.  Be- 
neath phrenology  is  the  theory  of  birth-destiny. 
No  stream  can  rise  above  its  source,  is  a  very  com- 
mon saying,  and  means  inability  to  rise  above  the 
impossible.  The  common  people  speak  very  fa- 
miliarly and  perhaps  not  very  respectfully  of  cer- 
tain ones  whom  they  know  well,  and  say  they  were 
"hatched  from  a  poor  nest."  An  eagle  cannot  be 
hatched  from  a  dove's  egg,  though  brought  into 
life  under  an  eagle's  breast.  A  fool  is  a  fool  still, 
in  spite  of  good  environments  and  school  training. 
"Though  thou  shouldest  bray  a  fool  in  a  mortar 
among  wheat  with  a  pestle,  yet  will  not  his  fool- 
ishness depart  from  him."     Proverbs  27 :  22. 


6  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

PREDESTINATION 

Indeed  the  whole  of  chapter  forty-nine  in  Gen- 
esis is  destiny  foretold.  "And  Jacob  called  unto 
his  sons,  and  said.  Gather  yourselves  together  that 
I  may  tell  you  that  which  shall  befall  you  in  the 
last  days."  One  cannot  read  this  chapter  with- 
out receiving  the  idea  of  predestination,  as  plainly 
written  as  anything  in  Mahomet's  Koran.  And 
the  idea  also  obtains  that  here  is  the  first  example 
of  a  father  phrenologically  reading  the  character 
or  destiny  of  his  sons,  perhaps  in  a  manner  some- 
what like  the  modern  phrenologists  read  character 
by  the  contour  of  the  head  and  the  destiny  of  the 
face. 

As  already  suggested  above,  a  good  environ- 
ment alone  will  not  make  a  good  man  out  of  one 
that  is  born  ill  conditioned.  So  the  importance  of 
good  birth  cannot  be  overestimated.  But  all  this 
fate — ^predestined  to  life  without  his  volition,  or- 
dained to  eternal  physical  extinction,  predeter- 
mined to  an  eternity,  fated  to  an  organization  of 
a  specific  kind  according  to  the  cell  in  which  he 
originated — all  this  does  not  relieve  him  of  exer- 
cising his  voluntary  powers  and  making  the  most 
out  of  himself.  That  he  is  capable  of  improve- 
ment of  the  talent  shows  God's  law  of  free  will,  or 
else  there  is  no  free  will  and  no  improvement  by 
self -effort.  The  law  of  opposites,  good  and  evil, 
striving  and  submission,  demonstrates  that  man  is 
capable  of  a  choice,  or  else  there  is  no  good  and 
evil, — all  destiny,  God!     The  idea  is  degrading, 


MENTAL  INHERITANCE  7 

preposterous!  Environment,  as  investigation  has 
demonstrated,  has  a  great  influence  in  the  devel- 
opment of  human  character.  Heredity  gives  the 
human  impulse  and  its  trend,  and  environment  de- 
velops it,  not  creates  it.  The  kind  of  seed  of  the 
sower  that  fell  in  stony  places  was  not  altered  by 
the  place  it  fell,  only  its  opportunities  for  large 
development  were  limited;  while  the  seed  that  fell 
upon  good  ground  simply  had  opportunity  to 
make  the  most  of  itself.  Hence  the  necessity  of 
putting  good  environments  before  all  undeveloped 
human  souls.     Matthew  13 :  5  f. 

NATURE    MAKES    HUMAN    DISTINCTIONS 

"The  chief  difference  in  human  beings  comes 
from  the  way  they  live,  not  from  heredity." — Dr.* 
Carl  Kelsey. 

"Three-fourths  of  the  differences  in  persons 
are  due  to  nature,  and  could  never  have  been  pre- 
vented by  education  or  anything  anybody  could 
have  done." — Prof.  Edward  L.  Thorndike. 

Every  teacher  knows  that  some  children,  with 
seemingly  equally  good  mental  abilities  in  other 
respects,  cannot  spell  as  well  as  some  other  chil- 
dren, though  continually  in  the  same  educational 
environment.  The  same  differences  have  been 
observed  in  musicians,  mathematicians,  and  others 
with  apt  qualities  for  certain  things.  Gifted  per- 
sons are  bom,  not  made.  Variety  is  the  pro- 
nounced design  in  all  things.  No  two  leaves,  no 
two  raindrops,  no  two  grains  of  sand,  no  two  per- 


8  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

sons  are  just  alike,  nor  do  they  even  look  alike. 
No  human  entity  is  remade  after  birth.  In  educa- 
tional and  sociological  work  it  is  essential  that  the 
quantity  of  the  difference  between  persons  be 
known.  Now,  if  nine-tenths  of  crime  come  from 
nature,  the  right  step  is  to  prevent  criminal  prop- 
agation. If  nine-tenths  come  from  environment, 
then  social  reform  is  the  method  of  elimination. 

LAW   OF   LUCK   DOESN't   RULE  AT    BIRTH 

Galton  found  on  investigation  that  the  proba- 
bilities of  an  eminent  man  having  an  eminent  son 
were  eleven  hundred  times  greater  than  those  of 
an  ordinary  man.  Some  biographies  show  that 
preachers  come  through  a  long  descent  of  preach- 
ers. The  idea  of  tracing  ancestry  at  all  is  illusory, 
if  chance  alone  rules  the  destiny  of  a  child  at 
birth.  God's  rules  are  invariable  and  without 
shadow  of  turning.  Grades  of  intellect  vary  as  a 
result  of  certain  causes,  invariable  laws,  certain 
combination  of  parents  or  of  parental  cells.  It 
is  a  fact  that  brothers  at  ten  resemble  each  other 
more  than  they  do  at  twenty.  But  the  fact  is, 
that  with  ten  years  more  influence  of  the  same 
home  environment  they  should  look  more  alike  at 
twenty  than  at  ten,  if  environment  shapes  the  be- 
ing more  than  birth  destiny.  Again,  with  the 
same  equal  environments  at  home,  brothers  should 
have  the  same  ambitions  and  desires  and  tenden- 
cies and  choice  of  pursuits ;  but  they  have  not. 
And  with  the  same  training  to  read    the    printed 


MENTAL  INHERITANCE  9 

page,  children  in  the  same  school  ought  to  read 
with  equal  facility;  but  they  do  not.  So  it  seems 
that  environment  cannot,  after  all,  prevent  these 
predestined  differences.  Therefore,  it  is  true,  as 
Milton  says:  "Childhood  shows  the  man  as  morn- 
ing shows  the  day." 

THEN   WHY    EDUCATE 

The  question  is  asked  naturally — "What's  the 
use,  then,  of  trying  to  educate,  when  it  can't  be 
done?"  In  large  it  may  be  said  that  children  in 
the  same  schools  manifest  great  difference  in  abil- 
ity to  spell,  but  they  all  can  spell, — a  thing  they 
could  not  do  before  the  drilling  in  spelling.  And 
they  can  all  spell  better  than  all  the  children  in 
Patagonia  or  Central  Africa.  Owing  to  the  initi- 
ative impulse  in  the  child,  two  started  at  the  same 
time  in  training  will  remain  equally  apart,  accord- 
ing to  their  original  differences,  in  the  end.  But 
each  will  be  higher  than  before,  but  the  original 
differences  will  not  be  eliminated,  rather  intensi- 
fied by  the  training.  According  to  the  law  of  im- 
provement, the  dullest  child  is  benefited  by  train- 
ing. All  children  are  not  equally  subject  to  the 
influence  of  environment,  but  environment  cannot 
account  for  this.  Education  is  not  aided  by  the 
belief  that  all  men  are  alike  at  birth,  bv^t  that  dif- 
ferences arise  through  environment  and  training. 
Nor  is  it  the  tendency  of  like  environments  to 
make  any  two  or  more  persons  alike.  The  true 
purpose  of  education  is  not  to  train  the  lower  one 


10  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

up  relatively  so  he  is  equal  or  nearer  to  the  one 
above  him,  but  to  move  him  up  actually  so  that  he 
is  above  what  he  was  before.  And  school  mark- 
ings should  be,  not  on  a  child's  relative  standing 
to  others,  but  on  his  advance  over  his  own  last 
effort, — his   relative  standing  to  himself. 

SELECTIVE  ENVIRONMENT 

That  wonderful  plant  wizard,  Luther  Burbank 
of  California,  believes  that  environment  (the  oppo- 
site of  heredity)  plays  at  least  as  important  a  part 
in  the  development  of  life — all  life — as  heredity. 
In  his  view  heredity  is  but  the  sum  of  past  environ- 
ments,— thus  saying  that  acquirements  may  be 
transmitted  through  the  blood, — and  that  the 
most  unpromising  material  may  be  highly  devel- 
oped through  selective  environment.  This  modify- 
ing force,  continued  through  generations,  he  thinks 
will  bring  about  established  results.  He  says  a 
child  born  of  criminal  parents,  with  a  setting  of 
morality  and  decency,  will  most  likely  grow  into 
an  upright  man.  Now,  this  result  may  follow,  to 
be  sure,  for  every  one  is  born  both  a  saint  and  a 
sinner, — or  the  capability  of  being  either ;  and  no 
one  is  born  utterly  vicious  or  supremely  good. 
Hence  environment  but  gives  the  opportunity  to 
develop  what  is  in  the  child,  and  does  not  create 
anything  anew  in  him.  Environment  is  but  the 
teacher,  training  such  material  as  comes  in  its  pur- 
view. Where  environment  fails  to  "make  good," 
heredity    has    predominated.      It    is    certain    that 


MENTAL  INHERITANCE  11 

even  the  best  "developed"  things,  when  permitted 
to  exercise  their  hereditary  instinct,-^— run  wild 
again, — return  to  their  original  estate.  Hence 
the  acquirements  through  environment  are  acci- 
dental, acquired,  and  not  permanent.  The  experi- 
mental observations  of  the  Italian,  Mendel,  a  few 
years  ago,  proved  very  conclusively  the  heredity 
in  plant  and  animal  life.  The  law  he  developed 
is  in  brief,  that  when  pure  stock  or  strains  are 
crossed,  certain  kinds  of  qualities  remain  as  if  in- 
destructible and  appear  uncontaminated  in  a  defi- 
nite proportion  of  the  offspring  of  all  generations 
after  the  first.  The  qualities  may  be  latent,  or 
unexercised,  but  their  existence  cannot  be  put 
aside. 

FOLK  LORE 

Alcott  said  that  "like  feeds  like — the  unclean 
spirit  licks  carnage  and  blood  from  his  trenches." 
The  idea  is  that  "like  begets  like."  It  is  said  again, 
"like  father,  like  son."  "A  chip  off  the  old  block" 
has  loitered  on  the  end  of  many  a  tongue.  "He's 
his  father  over,"  and  "his  father  will  never  die  as 
long  as  he  lives,"  are  often  heard  in  the  homely 
analyses  of  others.  And  folk  wisdom  classifies 
families  as  good  or  bad,  as  F.  F.  Vs.  or  D.  B's.,* 
as  being  of  blue  blood  or  of  poor  stock,  as  of  noble 
ancestry  or  of  obscure  descent,  as  people  with 
family  pride  or  with  no  genealogy,  as  having  a 
good  mixture  of  blood  or  a  tainted  blood.     It  can- 

*  F.  F,  v.,  first  family  of  Virginia.     D.  B.,  dead  beat. 


1«  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

not  be  said  that  good  blood  has  not  the  possibility 
of  degeneracy  in  it,  as  well  as  of  supremacy  in  it; 
or  that  bad  blood  has  no  redeeming  elements  in  it, 
for  bad' blood  cannot  exist  without  its  correlative 
of  saving  blood  in  it, — no  one  is  absolutely  good, 
nor  is  any  one  absolutely  bad.  Bad  and  good 
(opposites)  always  and  everywhere  and  in  every 
moral  thing,  exist  together  in  relative  proportions 
and  relationships,  irrespective  of  human  judg- 
ments about  them.  Hence  guards  are  ever  needed 
to  protect  the  weak,  who  has  less  gifts  of  the  good 
qualities,  and  is  strong  in  his  overmastering  evil 
tendencies.  Good  surroundings,  you  have  no  dif- 
ficulty in  seeing,  aid  to  better  life,  while  poor  con- 
ditions permit  the  stronger  elements  to  take  the 
bit  in  the  mouth  and  carry  the  victim  to  ruin. 

HUMAN    CAPABILITY    FOR    BETTERMENT 

Hence  the  raison  d'etre  for  social  settlement 
work, — to  make  the  surrounding  conditions  better. 
There  is  a  moral  as  well  as  an  intellectual  and 
physical  heredity,  and  in  every  man  is  a  latent 
capability  for  betterment  or  degeneracy.  This 
capability  is  a  proof  of  the  divinity  of  religion  as 
well  as  of  its  need  for  human  culture.  If  man  can 
not  be  bettered  by  religion,  the  theory  of  his  ca- 
pability is  a  foolishness.  This  is  the  same  as  say- 
ing that  a  third  force,  in  addition  to  heredity  and 
environment,  can  and  should  operate  in  shaping 
the  final  destiny  of  man.  By  the  law  of  opposites, 
all  confess  that  a  third  force,  evil,  can  and  does 


MENTAL  INHERITANCE  13 

militate  against  the  best  interests  of  man.  As  Paul 
said:  "I  find  then  the  law,  that,  to  me  who  would 
do  good,  evil  is  present."  For  by  the  law  of  oppo- 
sites  evil  cannot  be  absolutely  divorced  from  good; 
and  indeed  prayer  would  be  foolishness  if  it  could 
be.  So  man  is  ever  in  danger  of  the  blandishments 
of  the  serpent.  Absolute  good  and  evil  are  not 
birth  gifts, — only  the  tendency  to  do  good  or  evil. 
There  may,  too,  be  good  and  bad  environments, — 
tending  to  character-making.  Free  will,  in  very 
truth,  has  its  opposite,  destiny.  In  mature  life 
man  can  and  does  make  his  environments,  through 
the  forces  within  him. 

EVOLUTION 

In  point  of  fact,  evolution  is  a  theory  of  hered- 
ity. If  chance  prevailed,  there  could  be  no  defi- 
nite, regular  progress.  If  elemental  nature  was  not 
positively  transmissible,  then  there  is  no  certainty 
in  God's  reputably  immutable  laws.  However, 
the  theory  that  different  species  blend  in  their 
progeny  and  produce  a  new,  permanent  compound 
seems  to  be  in  contravention  of  immutable  law 
and  is  not  confirmed.  That  permanent  hybrids 
are  secured  by  cultivation  is  doubtful.  For 
among  all  the  infinitude  of  grasses,  in  hopeless 
confusion,  in  the  field,  each  class  selects  and  fjuc- 
tifies  its  own  pollen  and  perpetuates  its  own  kind, 
according  to  the  decree  announced  in  Genesis. 
The  law  of  selection  applies  chiefly  and  regularly 
each  to  its  kind.     The  survival  of  the  fittest  ap- 


14  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

plies  with  greater  force  to  the  stronger  in  the 
same  species,  than  it  does  to  the  supposed,  as- 
sumed superiority  of  the  crosses  and  hybrids,  else 
why  do  they  tend  back  to  the  original  when  let 
alone,  when  not  subject  to  the  influences  of  domes- 
tication? 

"circumstances  make  the  man!" 

Robert  Owen,  the  Scotch  socialist  and  philan- 
thropist, you  remember,  spent  eighty  thousand 
pounds  to  demonstrate  the  saying  that  "circum- 
stances make  the  man,"  and  when  he  had  squan- 
dered his  fortune  to  demonstrate  this  idea  and 
had  become  poor  and  old,  he  found  to  his  dismay 
no  charity  among  those  his  charity  had  benefited. 
They  had  not  "developed"  their  faculty  of  charity 
in  the  schooling  he  gave  them.  He  had  not  im- 
proved nature.  It  is  difficult  to  improve  upon 
God's  handiwork.  With  all  his  culture  man  is 
still   a   man. 

PHYSICAL    HEALTH 

Physicians  tell  us  that  man's  physical  destiny  is 
undoubtedly,  in  some  degree,  determined  before 
he  is  born.  Some  families  show  a  predisposition 
to  gouty  indigestion,  some  to  small  lung  capacity, 
some  to  stomach  troubles,  and  so  on.  Hence  the 
importance  of  better  mothers  and  fathers,  and  the 
proper  care  of  the  mother  during  gestation.  The 
demand  is  for  "a  race  of  healthy,  robust  mothers 
— ^the  baby's  rights."     Dr.  L.  Merzbacher,  in  his 


MENTAL  INHERITANCE  16 

studies  of  the  problem  of  inherited  diseases,  finds 
it  true  that  there  is  a  possible  inheritance  of  ten- 
dencies toward  certain  diseases.  And  he  finds  this 
latent  tendency  is  greater  through  the  daughters 
than  through  the  sons  of  the  diseased.  This  trans- 
mittal of  diseases  to  children  through  the  mother 
is  proof  of  the  mother's  great  influence  on  the 
child.  This  tendency  is  of  great  and  persistent 
stability.  Sterne  says,  "My  Tristram's  misfor- 
tunes began  nine  months  before  ever  he  came  into 
the  world."  One  of  the  characters  in  Collins' 
"Armadale"  asks:  "Is  my  father's  crime  looking 
at  you  out  of  my  eyes.?" 

God  decreed  all  things,  in  a  sense,  but  he  also 
let  it  remain  as  a  decree  that  man  should  work  out 
his  own  soul's  salvation,  not  by  himself  alone,  but 
by  accepting  Christ's  teachings  of  love  and  his 
philosophy  of  human  conduct.  Man  can  as  easily 
create  the  air  he  breathes  as  he  can  construct  the 
philosophies  of  life.  By  investigation  he  simply 
finds  them  out,  not  makes  them. 

APOLOGY 

It  is  easy  to  enlarge  this  question  of  heredity 
into  an  extensive  volume.  Indeed,  much  of  what 
has  been  said  here  may  seem  unnecessary,  but  our 
experience  has  been  that  many  who  should  know 
well  these  simple,  plain  facts  are  entirely  preju- 
diced against  them,  and  so  reject  them  as  being 
utterly  wrong.  While  this  discussion,  therefore, 
is  platitudinous,  elementary,  pathetic,  yet  it  is  ab- 
solutely needed  in  any  discussion  of  child-saving 
and  building  larger  manhood. 


CHAPTER  II 

MARRIAGE 

In  the  "Salaman  and  Absal"  of  Omar  Khay- 
yam the  Sage  said  to  the  Shah: 

''  And  as  none 
Who  long  for  children  may  their  children  choose. 

Beware  of  teasing  Allah  for  a  son, 
Whom  having,  you  may  have  to  pray  to  lose." 

A  Spanish  proverb  says:  "An  ounce  of  mother 
is  worth  a  pound  of  preacher."  "She  who  rocks 
the  cradle  rules  the  world."  The  cry  is  going  up, 
"Save  the  child  from  a  poor  parent."  Effective- 
ness in  child  formation  is  less  in  the  training  than 
in  the  propagation  of  a  child  physically  and  men- 
tally sound.  Training  is  commendable,  beget- 
ting habits  that  shape  life  history,  but  heredity  is 
supremely  important.  Two  people  of  opposite 
sex  become  a  cause,  and  children  of  a  certain  type 
are  the  certain  result.  Other  combinations  of  the 
sexes  beget  other  as  certain  results,  health  and 
other  conditions  of  the  moment  entering  into  the 
complex  problem.  Different  mothers  beget  differ- 
ent children  by  the  same  father,  and  different 
fathers  beget  different  children  by  the  same 
mother, — the  difference  lying  primarily  in  the  dif- 
ferent cell  combination.  The  proper  procedure 
is,  then,  to  determine  the  certain  results  that  fol- 
low certain  cell  combinations. 

16 


MARRIAGE  17 

INQUIRY  INTO  BLOOD 

Not  till  lovers  inquire,  not  into  environments,  or 
into  conditions,  or  into  acquired  or  accidental  so- 
cial status,  but  into  blood,  or  what  one  is  in  esse, 
will  marriage  and  courtship  assume  a  scientific 
phase  instead  of  a  mere  haphazard,  unhappy,  un- 
fortunate association.  Something  is  to  be  ac- 
corded to  emotion  in  the  selection  of  a  life  part- 
ner, but  emotion  is  not  the  whole  of  the  law  of 
choice.  No  wonder  the  race  of  men  are  not  pro- 
gressing more  rapidly;  no  wonder  the  race  of 
"giants"  and  of  "long  livers,"  like  Adam,  have 
disappeared.  Misfit  unions  produce  abnormali- 
ties in  nervous  and  mental  gifts.  They  were  mar- 
ried but  not  mated.  From  the  standpoint  of  re- 
sults such  marriages  are  failures.  It  is  perhaps 
true  that  all  loveless  unions  are  brutal,  if  not 
morally  criminal. 

MARRIAGE  QUALIFICATIONS 

The  association  of  two  people  for  the  purpose 
of  engaging  in  the  business  of  mutual  family  rais- 
ing is  the  most  important  thing  in  life.  In  the 
first  place  matrimony  is  no  remedy  for  personal 
ills,  physical  or  mental,  and  no  one  should  deceive 
another  into  marrying  a  moral,  mental,  or  physi- 
cal deficiency  or  a  "hold  of  every  unclean  bird." 
It  is  lamentably  true  that  lovers  conceal  their  de- 
fects, and  they  do  not  know  each  other  until  they 
have  summered  and  wintered  together,  dwelt  a 
year  under  the  same  roof,  as    Fanny    Fern    said. 


18  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

Then  they  "find  each  other  out  too  late !"  Maybe. 
They  may  be  well  qualified  for  commercial  indus- 
try, or  for  agricultural  pursuits,  or  for  stock-rais- 
ing, but  not  for  children  raising, — qualified  for 
business,  but  not  to  make  a  bright,  sweet  home. 

The  wife  selected  should  be  of  good  blood, 
healthful,  bright-minded,  sincere,  truthful,  honest, 
sympathetic,  good.  These  are  not  ideal,  impossi- 
ble qualities,  nor  would  they  deprive  most  persons 
of  marriage.  The  advice  is  proffered  a  young  man 
not  to  marry  the  first  girl  that  "strikes"  his 
young,  immature,  impulsive  heart;  nor  "think  it 
over,"  for  it  is  said  that  thought  is  fatal  to  action. 
And  gray  hairs,  as  a  rule,  have  less  fire  in  them 
than  the  impulsive  time  of  youth.  Nature  makes 
no  mistakes,  men  do.  The  object  of  courtship 
should  be  to  ascertain  the  adaptability  of  one  to 
the  other  in  every  way.  Matchmakers,  to  be  sure, 
do  not  live  with  the  man  or  woman  in  the  case.  A 
giddy,  chattering  fool  is  not  a  pride  and  joy  in 
a  home,  and  still  less  is  a  doll-baby.  To  marry 
money,  or  a  rosy  lip,  or  a  row  of  pretty  teeth,  or 
beautiful  eyes,  or  a  fine  form,  or  fine  dress,  or  un- 
impeachable manners,  or  in  haste,  is  to  be  incon- 
siderate of  future  happiness.  When  the  roses  you 
married  fade,  love  fails.  You  can  not  tell  much  of 
the  other  by  looks,  anyhow.  With  the  make-up  of 
the  young  lady  put  off ;  with  the  skill  of  the  dress- 
maker and  the  cosmetics  and  the  false  hair  re- 
moved, you  know  not  the  remains.  In  courtship, 
ordinarily,  each  one  puts  his  best  foot  foremost 
and  carefully  conceals  the  rest. 


MARRIAGE  19 

DIVORCE 

Pat  went  back  to  the  minister  who  married  him 
and  requested  him  to  untie  from  him  the  wife  he 
had  hitched  to  him.  The  rueing  benedict  was  sur- 
prised that  it  could  not  be  done.  When  Pat  turned 
away  he  said:  "Well,  be  gorra,  some  man  will  be 
sorry  when  I'm  dead."  "Who.'*"  asked  the  minis- 
ter.   "The  fellow  that  gets  my  widdy." 

The  married  and  mated  never  seek  divorce ;  it  is 
only  the  married  and  mismated  that  do.  Perhaps 
if  the  girl  popped  the  question,  instead  of  parading 
in  order  to  be  picked,  there  would  be  fewer  di- 
vorces. But  it  is  not  certain  that  the  coming  woman 
will  have  a  surer  divinity  in  this,  than  the  man,  for 
a  change  of  conditions  does  not  alter  the  inevitable, 
does  not  remove  human  nature,  does  not  change  the 
tempers,  does  not  perpetuate  the  sexual  attractions 
for  each  other.  Doubtless  the  standard  of  sex 
relationships  would  be  higher,  and  the  man  who 
was  not  chosen  would  take  it  as  a  reproach.  In  the 
bird  world  the  female  selects  her  partner  in  nest- 
hiding.  The  fact  is  there  should  be  no  divorces, 
no  repudiation.  "Everyone  that  putteth  away  his 
wife,  saving  for  the  cause  of  fornication,  maketh 
her  an  adulteress;  and  whosoever  shall  marry  her 
when  she  is  put  away,  committeth  adultery." 

NEWLY    MADE    HOME 

The  problem  of  philanthropy  lies  chiefly,  to  be 
rather  vague  and  diplomatic  in  phraseology,  in  the 
transition  of  the  individual  from  the  family  to  new 
conditions,  where  he  becomes  a    unit  of    society 


20  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

without  a  corresponding  adjustment  to  his  sur- 
roundings. The  beginning  of  a  new  family  unit 
imposes  new  obligations  and  respects  for  personal 
as  well  as  mutual  rights,  and  sometimes  because 
these  things  are  not  understood,  shipwreck  is  made 
of  the  home,  the  leaven  for  future  divergencies  in- 
troduced, and  complaint  and  fault-finding  enter 
into  the  new  Eden.  The  family  unit  brings  new 
and  altered  social  obligations  in  the  larger  social 
unit  or  circle,  and  different  tastes  and  desires  in 
the  discharge  of  these  social  obligations  sometimes 
develop  antagonisms.  If  one  finds  the  largest  en- 
joyment in  "company"  and  the  other  in  retire- 
ment, these  differences  of  taste  become  irreconcil- 
able and  engender  unhappiness. 

To  define  the  male  individual  as  the  unit  of  so- 
ciety, he  is  best  understood  as  the  father,  who  is 
the  stay,  support,  defender,  provider,  comforter, 
and  the  individuals  of  the  family  organism  are  to 
be  educated  for  social  relationships.  This  train- 
ing should  not  be  at  the  expense  of  any  of  the 
other  members  of  the  family,  so  that  there  will  be 
no  family  disintegration ;  on  the  other  hand,  so 
that  there  will  be  harmony  and  a  building  up. 

FREEDOM    OF    CHOICE 

The  methods  of  courtship  and  the  marriage 
customs  in  all  lands  are  interesting  and  curious. 
In  our  country  to-day  men  and  women,  and  too 
often,  boys  and  girls,  marry  whom  and  when  they 
please,  regardless  of  the  perils  of  matrimony, 
bringing  as  many  children  into  existence  as  they 


MARRIAGE  21 

can,  and,  in  too  many  instances,  managing  to  slip 
out  of  the  resulting  obligations.  Even  boys  take 
upon  themselves  the  responsibilities  of  fatherhood, 
ignorant  of  what  they  are  doing,  and  sooner  or 
later,  abandon  the  young  mother  to  her  hard  fate. 
They  do  not  comprehend  the  crime  of  bringing 
children  into  the  world  and  permitting  them  to 
grow  without  direction  or  proper  home  environ- 
ment, to  "run  wild  and  go  to  the  dogs,"  to  be 
subject  to  but  their  own  immature  wish  and  will, 
unconscious  of  results.  The  older  social  system 
imposed  larger  views  of  the  marriage  relation,  and 
the  external  conscience,  the  general  ideal,  de- 
manded a  higher  course  of  conduct.  The  social  en- 
vironment of  a  village  or  neighborhood  then  kept 
many  in  the  right  track,  and  there  was  a  truer 
resignation  to  sexual  association  than  at  present. 
The  enlargement  of  sexual  liberty  in  modern  soci- 
ety has  not  been  attended  by  a  proportionate  in- 
crease in  wisdom  and  experience  and  moral  force. 
And  this  fact  will  account  for  wife  desertion, 
abandoned  children,  and  the  care  of  aged  and  in- 
firm parents  by  the  state.  Such  things  would  be 
impossible  under  a  patriarchal  constitution  of  soci- 
ety. But  neither  altruism,  in  its  best  sense,  nor 
the  millennium,  are  possible  as  long  as  man  re- 
mains unredeemed  and  believes  in  hedonics. 

Trial  marriages  and  the  "affinity"  theory  are  a 
mockery,  and  have  their  prototypes  in  the  brute 
creation. 

"For  it  is  better  to  marry  than  to  burn."  I 
Corinthians  7 :  9. 


CHAPTER  III 

RACE  SUICIDE 

The  discussion  of  this  grave  matter  has  been 
more  upon  the  ground  of  convenience  than  of 
morality.  The  creation  was  on  the  sound  plan 
that  everything  should  produce  "after  its  own 
kind,"  according  to  natural  laws  then  put  in  force, 
since  which  time  there  has  been  no  deflection 
therefrom.  The  Lord  slew  Onan  for  refusing  to 
bring  forth  children  by  his  dead  brother's  wife. 
It  was  displeasing  to  the  Lord.  And  this  is  the 
moral  stigma  resting  upon  race  suicide,  as  the 
accommodated  language  of  the  hour  has  it.  No 
arguing  around  this  God-side  of  it  will  undo  the 
lesson  he  meant  to  teach  the  children  of  men  in  the 
fearful  example  of  Onan. 

NUMBERS    AND    AUTHORITY 

Laboring  people  have  organized  and  are  de- 
manding of  the  authorities  a  recognition  of  their 
claim  to  "rights  in  the  great  administration  of 
public  affairs."  This  is  to  say,  numbers,  not  quali- 
ties shall  weigh  in  governmental  matters.  If  the 
theory  that  numbers  bequeath  power  and  invest 
them  with  a  right  to  authority,  then  the  right  to 
bring  poor  children  and  poor  men  into  the  world 
is  to  be  considered  first  and  back  of  all.  In  this 
idea  of  majority  rights  lies  involved  the  security 
of  the  government  and  of  present  institutions.  If 
"all  power  is  inherent  in  the  people"  and  govern- 


RACE  SUICIDE  ftS 

ment  is  established  through  the  consent  of  all,  then 
in  self-defense  government  may  protect  and  pre- 
serve itself  for  the  good  of  all.  This  governmental 
duty  denies  the  moral  right  of  ignorant  numbers 
to  rule.  On  no  account  can  it  be  conceded  that 
scrub  human  stock  is  as  good  as  blooded. 

"human  culls" 

If,  as  is  said,  ninety  per  cent,  of  American  chil- 
dren are  "human  culls,"  the  anti-race-suicide 
theory  can  not  be  justified.  The  purists  may  fat- 
uously call  eugenics  obscenity,  but  the  matter  of 
quality  rather  than  quantity  demands  attention, 
and  it  is  criminal  to  ignore  it.  For  it  is  the  men- 
tal and  not  the  physical  qualities  that  are  at  the 
bottom  of  present-day  progressive  action.  "The 
greatest  crime  of  the  ages  is  too  many  children," 
declares  one  enthusiastic  woman.  That  God  made 
the  sexes  is  sufficient  evidence  that  the  subject  is 
not  impure,  for  "God  saw  everything  that  he  had 
made,  and  behold  it  was  very  good."  It  is  not 
more  children  that  is  wanted,  but  better.  Already 
the  social  restraints  advocated  by  Rev.  Thomas 
R.  Malthus  have  become  a  serious  matter.  In  a 
general  estimate,  perhaps  not  more  than  ten  per 
cent,  of  the  children  born  are  children  of  love,  and 
ninety  per  cent,  are  not  wanted,  and  enter  into 
the  general  mass  of  men  as  "undesirables."  The 
wonder  is  that  they  make  life  as  large  a  success 
as  they  do.  The  need  is  a  better  and  stronger  race 
of  men,  who  will  be  proud  of  their  genealogical 
pedigree.     Why  not? 


24  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

COLLEGES    PROMOTE   RACE    SUICIDE 

The  charge  is  made  in  all  seriousness  that 
American  colleges  are  promoters  of  race  suicide, 
and  that  men  are  intimidated  and  remain  bachelors 
because  of  the  increased  duties  of  married  life. 
Dean  Marion  Talbot  has  written :  "In  spite  of  the 
pronunciamentos  of  chief  executives  and  the 
higher  clergy,  the  evidence  of  physicians  and  of 
social  investigators  is  that  men  are  more  respon- 
sible than  women  for  the  decline  in  the  birth  rate." 
Many  women  shrink  from  maternity,  and  society 
women  cannot  tolerate  the  care  of  child  rearing. 

The  statement  made  by  some,  that  a  child  in  a 
home  is  not  only  a  bond  of  union,  but  also  as  well 
a  moral  uplift,  is  sound.  Therefore  every  home 
needs  a  child,  the  best  child  possible,  but  not  a 
"houseful  of  kids."  Even  to  adopt  a  child  is  an 
act   of   humanitarianism. 

LARGE   FAMILIES 

The  poor  and  the  physically  disqualified  for 
rearing  and  educating  children,  for  one  thing, 
have  large  families.  Degeneracy  is  in  the  air  of 
such  a  home,  and  there  environment,  in  a  material 
sense,  becomes  destiny. 

"The  worst  form  of  race  suicide  consists  in 
bringing  children  into  the  world  who  cannot  be 
properly  matured,  trained  or  educated,  and  whose 
neglected  bodies  simply  serve  to  increase  enor- 
mously the  sum  total  of  human  suffering,  and  run 
up  the  death  rate.     It  seems  as  if  'race  homicide' 


RACE  SUICIDE  25 

would  be  a  better  term  to  apply  to  this  condition 
than  'race  suicide.'  " 

The  poor  are  in  the  majority.  The  better  able 
to  rear  good,  educated  citizens  are  not  doing  it; 
and  the  childless  women  are  guilty  of  great  eco- 
nomic evil,  to  say  the  very  least.  "Under  their 
cloak  of  respectability,  they  are  more  wicked  than 
the  Magdalens  in  the  dives."  Every  child  is  a 
candidate  for  heaven,  destined  to  become  an  angel, 
and  its  better  training  and  conditions  in  life  will 
make  it  a  better  citizen  in  life  and  a  better  citizen 
in  the  royal  kingdom  of  heaven.  Children  should 
not  be  denied  the  home,  but  numbers  should  be 
regulated. 

The  vigorous,  child-bearing  immigrants  will 
eventually,  it  seems  now,  dispossess  the  race  that 
first  settled  this  country, — the  Huns  and  Gauls 
and  Ostragoths  and  Vandals  will  take  us  and  pos- 
sess our  land. 

DUTIES    OF    THE    CITIZEN 

It  is  not  irony  to  say  that  women  would  have  a 
better  reason  for  suffrage,  if  they  demonstrated 
better  success  in  their  home  work  and  in  the  fam- 
ily. There  are  those  who  think  portionless,  child- 
less women  "should  keep  silent."  I  Corinthians 
14:13.  But  this  is  not  said  to  discourage  the 
suffragette  movement,  which  we  believe  in,  but  to 
reprobate  the  social  reasons  advanced  for  race  sui- 
cide. After  the  lecture  of  Colonel  Roosevelt  at 
the    Paris    Sorbonne,    or    French    Academy,    on 


«6  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

"Citizenship  in  a  Republic,"  or  "Duties  of  the 
Citizen,"*  a  French  official  began  a  series  of  lec- 
tures on  the  "Duties  of  the  Women  in  a  Repub- 
Kc,"  and  amplified  the  "race  suicide"  idea.  The 
national  economic  sense  is  against  race  extermina- 
tion, but  the  social  question  and  the  fitness  of  the 
new  child  for  life's  duties  and  the  ability  to  train 
it  up  properly  has  its  phase. 

STRONG    SONS    AND    FAIR    DAUGHTERS 

With  little  knowledge  of  how  to  rear  children, 
fathers  and  mothers  go  on  in  the  good,  old-fash- 
ioned way,  guessing  at  what  should  be  done  to 
make  better  men  and  women,  but  in  the  matter  of 
producing  better  wheat  and  corn  and  raising 
meatier  steers  and  fatter  pigs  the  best  energies 
are  devoted.  All  the  teachings  relating  to  crop 
production,  stock  raising  and  breeding  are  sought 
for  and  applied,  while  child-rearing  remains  a 
guess,  combined  with  hearsay  and  superstition  and 
concealment.  No  study  is  given  to  the  subject  of 
producing  a  splendid  crop  of  strong  sons  and  fair 
daughters.  The  laws  of  nature  make  this  easily 
possible. 

It  is  a  magnificent,  divine,  loving  duty  to  safe- 
guard the  boys  and  girls  in  a  morally  beautiful 
home,  educate  them,  discipline  them,  fill  them  with 
patriotism,  inoculate  them  with  the  glory  of  a 
holy,  religious  sense,  develop  them  into  well- 
rounded,  splendid  manhood  and  womanhood.     It 

*  "  Independent,"  April  28,  1910,  p.  801. 


RACE  SUICIDE  27 

is  much  to  be  regretted  that  we  do  not  give  its  just 
measure  of  honor  and  praise  to  this  exalted  home 
life. 

While  precision  is  more  and  more  developed  in 
the  material  affairs  of  life,  and  colleges  are  teach- 
ing the  best  ways  of  gaining  prosperity  and  suc- 
cess, fathers  and  mothers,  regretful  as  it  may  be, 
go  right  on  blindly  making  experiments  in  rearing 
children.  Children  may  even  be  well  bom,  but 
their  successful  career  is  often  defeated  through 
the  ignorance  of  the  parents.  This  matter  of  child- 
rearing  should  be  taught  in  school  courses,  so  that 
parents  can  know  how  to  develop  to  the  utmost 
their  little  innocents.  Too  often  the  child's  moral 
and  physical  fiber  is  hurt  by  the  inexperienced, 
guessing  efforts  of  the  parents.  Indeed,  the  mat- 
ter of  numbers  in  the  family  need  not  militate 
against  the  best  interests  of  child  and  parent,  if 
a  full  knowledge  of  God's  laws  of  reproduction  are 
understood. 

EUGENICS 

Late  marriages  are  not  the  best,  for  many  rea- 
sons. A  man  may  marry  at  twenty-two,  and  a 
woman  earlier.  It  is  a  shame  that  so  many  men 
are  physically  unfit  for  matrimonial  union,  and  a 
national  law  prescribing  physical,  mental,  moral 
and  social  examinations  of  marital  candidates 
would  be  a  good  inestimable.  Disgraceful  as  it  may 
sound,  yet  divorces  and  unhappy  marriages  are 
great  causes  in  sending  recruits  to  the  underworld. 


28  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

The  plan  of  George  Bernard  Shaw,  outlining 
eugenics  politics,  is  visionary.  He  advocated  the 
abolishment  of  the  marriage  ceremony  and  prop- 
erty and  the  removal  of  undesirables  by  the  state. 
He  thought  it  was  the  general  experience  of  people 
to  know  only  two  or  three  marriageable  persons, 
and  often  not  to  like  any  of  these.  In  order  to  give 
natural  inpulse  a  chance,  he  would  make  the  whole 
community  eligible  to  marriage,  and  widen  the 
sphere  of  sexual  selection.  The  state  he  would 
have  provide  incomes  for  everybody,  and  see  that 
everybody  earned  his  income.  This  socialistic 
matrimonial  scheme  cannot  be  approved  of  on  the 
ground  of  human  experience,  and  certainly  on  no 
other. 

The  blending  of  bloods  and  races,  in  order  to 
improve  the  stock,  is  so  trite  a  physiological  fact 
that  the  mere  mention  of  the  subject  is  sufficient 
here.  Stockmen  fully  understand  this  elemental 
principle,  and  they  will  not  "breed  in,"  as  they 
call  it,  because  the  stock  "runs  out,"  and  it  costs 
as  much  or  more  to  develop  a  scrub  animal,  as  a 
good  one.  Few  persons  are  willing  to  concede  they 
are  descendants  of  scrub  human  stock.  The 
reformation  of  the  world  depends  upon  the  im- 
provement of  the  race  of  men. 


CHAPTER  IV 

COST  OF  THE  CHILD 

The  expense  of  birth,  living,  and  dying  varies 
in  proportion  to  the  conditions  of  the  child.  The 
average  well-to-do  American  citizen  expends  an- 
nually for  himself,  from  birth  to  death,  $1,000. 
If  he  should  live  sixty-five  years  he  expends  $65,- 
000 — to  live,  eat,  and  die!  Even  the  worthless 
pauper,  it  has  been  estimated,  who  begins  in  the 
workhouse  and  ends  there  at  eighty  years  of  age, 
costs  $12,000  to  house,  clothe,  and  feed.  And  the 
prison  dweller  costs  even  more  than  this,  for  he 
has  to  be  more  securely  housed.  The  cost  of  his 
catching,  conviction  and  after-maintenance  is  the 
largest  part  of  the  cost  of  the  convicted  criminal. 
Even  the  nomadic  hobo  costs  about  $100  a  year 
for  every  year  of  his  idle,  non-productive,  wasted 
life.  He  acquires  his  livelihood  by  begging,  bully- 
ing, blackmailing,  thieving,  and  to  this  is  to  be 
added  the  expense  of  hedging  him  about  in  order 
to  restrain  him  from  getting  more  than  a  miserable 
pittance  and  in  shifting  him  from  place  to  place. 
The  government  cannot  act  as  fairy  godmother  to 
all  and  insure  a  living,  work  or  no  work. 

MILLIONAIRE    EXTRAVAGANCE 

The  millionaire  class  expends  say  $1,000  a 
week,  or  over  $3,000,000  in  sixty  years.  The 
American  girl,  moving  in  the  same  rank,  with  no 

29 


30  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

figures  available,  it  is  safe  to  think  she  will  expend 
a  sum  equal  to  the  man.  There  is  not  a  little  of 
the  human  and  envious  in  the  ostentatious  display 
of  pelf.  In  a  civilized  community  each  one  is  es- 
sentially and  mutually  dependent  upon  the  other 
for  the  means  of  existence  and  for  enjoyment. 
Even  business  is  the  gaining  of  money  from  one 
class  of  men  and  the  exchange  of  it  to  another. 
The  doctor  and  the  nurse  who  attend  a  new-born 
child  must  live,  and  civilization  imposes  pay  to  eat. 
From  infancy  to  old  age  one  is  surrounded  with 
other  people's  hands  outheld  for  money,  and  even 
in  death  the  corpse's  purse  is  opened  by  other's 
hands  to  pay  for  his  interment.  All  through  life 
a  man  is  putting  in  and  taking  out  of  his  purse. 

COST  OF  AVEEAGE   BOY 

The  average  boy,  so  said,  costs  about  $50  a 
year  for  the  first  five  years  of  his  existence,  or 
$250.  The  next  ten  years,  at  $100  a  year,  the 
sum  is  $1,000,  a  total  of  $1,250  for  the  first  fifteen 
years  of  his  life.  J.  Fernald,  sociologist,  says  the 
boy  costs  the  next  six  years  $200  a  year,  or 
$1,200;  making  a  total  at  twenty-one  of  $2,450. 
A  college  course  may  cost  $2,500  more,  so  that 
at  twenty-one  the  cost  may  be  $5,000.  He  does 
not  return  $100  of  this  cash  invested  in  him  be- 
fore he  is  twenty-seven. 

The  exposure  of  this  investment  to  the  dangers 
of  saloons  and  social  slums  is  not  prudent.  The 
mother's  life  blood  and  heart  and  affections  are 


COST  OF  THE  CHILD  31 

also  in  him,  thus  exposed  to  ruin.  Policy  would 
dictate  that  as  good  care  should  be  taken  of  him 
as  of  swine,  cattle,  and  horses. 

CHANCES  FOR  A  POOR  CHILD 

Investigation  shows  that  the  chances  of  life  for 
a  poor  child  are  less  than  for  one  well-bom.  In  a 
fashionable  section  of  New  York  thirty-seven 
babes  were  born  in  one  year;  in  the  middle  class 
one  hundred  and  sixty;  and  in  a  tenement  quarter 
four  hundred  and  thirty-four.  In  two  weeks  cho- 
sen to  note  the  death  rate  of  these  infants  the 
weather  was  extremely  hot.  But  none  of  the  babes 
of  the  first  class  and  none  of  the  middle  class  died. 
In  both  these  cases  the  mothers  knew  how  to  care 
for  and  love  their  own  flesh  and  blood.  In  the  ten- 
ement quarter  sixteen  of  the  infants  died,  or  nearly 
four  per  cent,  of  the  births  for  the  entire  year.  At 
this  rate  the  year  round  more  than  a  hundred  per 
cent,  of  the  children  would  die, — if  that  could  be, 
— more  deaths  than  births.  But  every  poor  child 
would  be  swept  out  of  existence,  largely  through 
the  carelessness  and  criminal  ignorance  of  the 
mother.  The  fundamentals  of  life, — ^light,  air, 
cleanliness,  and  proper  food, — are  not  as  available 
for  the  extremely  poor  as  for  the  other  two  classes. 
It  is  lamentable,  this  waste  of  boy  material — man 
material.  The  problem  is  to  conserve  it,  and  make 
the  most  of  it,  rather  than  let  it  become  an  ex- 
pense and  an  affliction  to  those  who  pay  the  bills, 
the  honest,  industrious  tax-payer. 


82  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

BIETH-GIFT  OF  INTELLECT 

Every  child  born  possesses  a  degree  of  intel- 
lectual force  varying  from  the  imbecile  and  idiot 
to  the  talent  of  a  genius.  And  every  child  pos- 
sesses two  elements  of  being,  that  of  emotion  and 
that  of  perception  or  reason,  and  it  may  be  defi- 
cient in  one  without  being  defective  in  the  other. 
Nature  invariably  reproduces  after  its  type,  yet  in 
endless  degrees  and  variations  of  the  elemental 
endowments.  These  two  essences  of  soul  are  the 
things  out  of  which  the  future  citizen  is  to  be 
built,  and  they  can  only  be  directed  and  trained, 
according  to  the  law  of  exercise  or  use,  and^  not 
altered  or  made  over.  Those  lacking  the  full  en- 
dowment of  physical  and  moral  energy  possess  in 
a  corresponding  degree  the  power  of  improvement 
of  what  he  has,  and  is  entitled  to  the  best  condi- 
tions and  fullest  training  possible,  but  men  differ 
as  to  whom  this  obligation  rests  upon.  With  bad 
birth,  bad  surroundings,  poverty,  poor  opportu- 
nities, criminal  training,  false  sentiment,  beggarly 
ideals,  the  child  will  necessarily  become  a  bad  citi- 
zen; and  a  good  citizen  if  the  converse  of  these 
things  are  given  him.  Every  parent  is  under  di- 
vine obligation  to  bequeath  to  his  child  the  best 
possible. 

Habits  of  mind  grow  as  imperceptibly  as 
growth  of  body,  and  eventually  become  as  firmly 
established  as  limbs  of  a  tree  are  to  the  trunk. 
Hence  conversions  or  new  friendships  are  scarcely 
possible  in  old  age.     Something  not  recalled,  may- 


COST  OF  THE  CHILD  83 

be,  leads  one  to  logic,  one  to  science,  one  to  humor, 
one  to  business,  one  to  some  profession,  one  to 
the  sacred  desk,  one  to  the  school  room,  one  to 
the  newspaper,  one  to  law,  one  to  politics,  one  to 
the  farm,  one  to  writing  novels,  one  to  oratory, 
one  to  some  trade,  and  so  on — so  subtile  are  the 
potent  influences  upon  life  and  destiny.  Then 
with  proper  direction  at  the  supreme  moment 
that  predestinates  lives,  human  capabilities  can  be 
turned  into  almost  any  direction ;  provided  always 
nature's  gifts  are  sufficient  and  competent  in  the 
initiation  of  the  embryonic  citizen.  The  wisest 
man  settled  this  question  of  child  environment: 

"Train  up  a  child  in  the  way  he  should  go,  and 
when  he  is  old  he  will  not  depart  from  it."  Prov- 
erbs, 22 :  6. 

"Wisdom  is  the  principal  thing;  therefore  get 
wisdom :  Yea,  with  all  thou  hast  gotten  get  under- 
standing." Proverbs,  4:7.  In  other  words  this 
may  read:  "The  beginning  of  wisdom  is,  get  wis- 
dom." Hence  the  imperative  need  of  good  exam- 
ple in  the  school  and  in  the  home.  Worth  is  se- 
cured only  by  industry. 


CHAPTER  V 
BOY 

Man  is  an  adaptable  animal,  capable  of  domes- 
ticity and  training. 

The  Spartans  exposed  their  children  on  Mount 
Taygetus,  the  Hindus  cast  theirs  in  the  Ganges, 
we  expose  ours  in  the  hell  of  the  streets.  Some 
profess  to  say  that  the  boy  preserved  from  this 
evil — the  "good"  boy — always  exhibits  the  chaf- 
ings  of  his  leading-strings,  lacks  fibre,  is  defective 
in  initiative,  and  has  no  "go"  in  him, — ignorant 
alike  of  his  own  powers  and  limitations,  preco- 
ciously acute  but  narrow  in  judgment  and  defec- 
tive in  comprehension  and  reasoning.  These  same 
students  of  paidology  inform  us  that  the  "average" 
boy  is  flabby,  lacking  grit  and  push,  clogging  the 
way.  G.  Stanley  Hall  advises  snap  and  fight  in 
the  streets  to  defend  himself,  if  necessary.  On  the 
other  hand,  what  does  the  street  gamin  gain  from 
touch  with  smut  that  improves  his  human  flavor. 
Pitch  cannot  be  touched  without  some  of  it  stick- 
ing. Man  partakes  of  the  color  of  his  surround- 
ings. 

BOY   IMPULSES 

The  tragedy  of  a  boy  mismanaged  is  not  closed 
with  the  boy's  end  of  life,  for  it  is  said  influences 
are  eternal — ^both  good  and  bad.  And  a  boy  who 
doesn't  know  how  to  play  rarely  attempts  any- 
thing.    The  fundamental  impulse  of  boy  life  is 


BOY  35 

daring,  risking,  and  this  explains  why  valiant  men 
are  his  heroes.  The  sea,  the  army,  daring  occu- 
pations become  his  ideals.  Restraint  is  culture  and 
direction,  but  none  the  less  repugnant  to  him. 

In  view  of  what  boys  are,  of  nature's  provisions 
for  growth,  of  the  necessary  interference  of  city 
life  with  those  provisions,  the  first  obligation  is  to 
give  means  for  true  development,  in  the  interest 
of  safety  and  equal  rights  and  obligations  (not 
equal  distribution  of  the  natural  things  of  the 
world).  A  London  scientist  has  said  that  life  in 
a  big  city  makes  children  quick  but  not  intelligent, 
hastening  the  development  of  the  brain,  unnatu- 
rally. They  become  superficial,  alert,  but  not  ob- 
servant, constructive,  reasoning;  excitable  but  de- 
void of  enthusiasm,  chances  destroyed  for  being 
clever,  blase,  fickle,  discontented,  bird-witted,  and 
properly  speaking  see  nothing,  for  time  is  not  per- 
mitted to  delve,  bewildered  at  the  multitude  of 
things.  In  fact,  life  in  a  city  is  essentially  danger- 
ous to  the  child-boy — corrupting,  so  prone  is  a 
boy  to  be  led  off.  The  city  attractions  interfere 
with  his  best  intellectual  development  as  it  does 
with  his  physical  progress,  leading  off  his  atten- 
tion from  his  best  efforts.  The  tendency  is  to  put 
temptations  in  his  way  that  lead  him  down  rather 
than  help  him  up.  Books  are  not  the  only  agency 
of  intellectual  development ;  there  is  the  experience 
of  some  form  of  productive  industry.  "He  that 
hath  a  trade  hath  an  estate."* 

•**  Century,  1910." 


86  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

The  comradeship  of  nature  on  a  farm,  the  sense 
of  strict  faithfulness  and  loyalty,  are  gained  in  the 
country,  and  the  work  there  is  a  training  of  hands 
and  heart  and  brain — to  plan,  to  will,  to  work,  to 
execute.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  these  are  valuable 
acquisitions  in  the  training  for  citizenship — gained 
in  what  has  been  called  "the  age  of  homespun." 
The  same  qualities  were  gotten  in  the  medieval 
guilds,  and  demonstrate  why  the  guilds  were  able 
to  gain  control  of  civic  affairs  and  to  dictate  terms 
to  kings.  A  healthy  process  of  social  development 
conduces  to  happiness. 

CIVIC    OBLIGATIONS 

The  complex  and  vast  industrial  organizations 
of  the  modern  city  exceed  the  ability  of  the  boy  to 
manage  or  to  be  entrusted  with.  And  this  can- 
not be  said  to  be  a  fault  of  the  city,  or  of  the  boy, 
or  of  the  industry.  It  is  the  unavoidable  result 
of  modern  social  conditions.  Therefore  it  is  the 
city's  duty  to  make  up  to  the  boy  in  educational 
facilities,  or  productive  manual  training,  what  he 
has  been  deprived  of.  This  consists  less  in  elegant 
schoolhouses  and  artistic  and  beautiful  conditions 
than  in  practical  drill  of  the  embryonic  citizen  in 
what  will  make  him  a  useful  and  efficient  citizen. 
The  aesthetic  sense  is  less  important  than  the  culti- 
vation of  the  sense  of  the  dignity  of  manual  indus- 
try. A  marble  palace  is  a  poor  substitute  for  a 
shop  or  a  piece  of  land. 


BOY  87 

THEEE   CHILD-LIFE   PERIODS 

An  ordinary  classification  of  the  unfolding  of 
a  child's  life  is  into  three  periods.  The  first  is  the 
period  of  innocencyy  from  birth  to  about  seven 
years  of  age.  The  second  is  the  period  of  cJUld- 
hood,  from  seven  to  fourteen.  The  third  is  the 
period  of  conscious  life,  from  fourteen  to  twenty- 
one.  In  the  first  period  the  child  is  passive,  ab- 
sorptive, little  affected  by  its  surroundings  so  far 
as  to  offer  resistance  or  approval ;  though  it  is  be- 
coming thoroughly  saturated  with  its  conditions 
and  receiving  the  training  of  the  impulses  that  con- 
trol in  after  life — fructifying  influences  that  are 
stored  in  the  unfolding  soul  as  germ  causes  for  fu- 
ture results,  forces  for  good  or  for  evil. 

In  the  second  period  habits  are  established,  im- 
pulses subdued  and  directed  or  licensed  like  a  rav- 
ening beast ;  those  influences  formed  that  direct  or 
suggest  without  thought;  the  period  when  swell- 
ing, throbbing,  bursting  life  begins  to  enlarge  with- 
out ideal  or  goal  or  fixed  opinions — pure  exist- 
ence— full  of  burgeoning  life  and  energy,  asking 
not  about  results,  active  without  inquiry  why,  let- 
ting off  wild  energy.  Thoughtless,  impulsive, 
obeying  its  being,  tentative,  experimenting,  ex- 
ploiting, learning,  broadening.  "What  possessed 
the  kid  to  do  such  a  thing?"  No  answer  possible. 
This  period  is  like  the  opening  seeds  peeping 
through  the  earth  in  the  sunny  spring,  not  knowing 
or  caring  what  they  are  till  further  developed. 
Everything  then  crystalizing  into  habit  that  es- 
tablishes character. 


88  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

The  third  period  leads  up  to  mature  develop- 
ment, when  life  and  its  ways  seem  to  be  established, 
a  period  with  some  fixed  elements  in  it,  some  forces 
that  control  through  life.  Subsequent  successful 
alterations  are  few. 

CHAEACTEE  DEVELOPMENT 

Judaical  history  testifies  to  the  fact  that  the  old 
Judaic  law  and  custom  dedicated  the  child  very 
early  by  outward  form  and  ceremony  to  the  God 
of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  the  parents  thereby 
obligating  themselves  to  bring  it  up  in  the  Jewish 
faith.  They  then  laid  out  for  it  a  distinct  course 
of  education  and  training  for  the  head,  the  hand, 
and  the  heart, — ^the  whole  person,  industrial,  phy- 
sical, intellectual,  social,  religious.  At  twelve  this 
same  child  was  again  brought  into  the  temple  for 
other  forms  and  ceremonies,  in  which  it  gave  con- 
scious acceptance  of  God  and  approval  of  all  that 
had  been  done  for  it.  And  all  through  the  Old 
Testament  there  is  evidence  of  the  importance  the 
Hebrews  attached  to  the  proper  care  and  training 
of  the  child  and  the  safeguards  and  restraints  put 
around  it.  Deuteronomy  6:7  and  11:18.  In  the 
natural,  moral,  and  civic  worlds  one  suffers  in 
proportion  as  he  departs  from  law.  Without  due 
obedience  to  just  law,  disaster  enters  the  home,  the 
school,  the  city,  the  nation,  the  church.  Christ's 
philosophy  embraced  the  noble  idea  of  purity,  in- 
nocence, humbleness,  and  he  who  would  live  excel- 
lently cannot  escape  from  this  superior  philoso- 
phy- 


BOY  S9 

THE  SUCCEEDING  GENERATIONS 

How  quickly  the  boys  and  girls  of  to-day  become 
the  boys  and  girls  of  yesterday,  and  are  the  men 
and  women  of  the  next  day  "in  the  busy  haunts 
of  men,"  the  responsible  ones  in  new  homes  made 
for  themselves.  The  child  of  to-day  is  the  chief 
factor  and  actor  in  to-morrow.  Himself  a  re- 
sult of  yesterday  he  becomes  a  cause  to-day.  Now, 
what  is  he  as  a  cause.''  As  the  child  is  trained,  so 
is  the  future,  the  church,  the  nation,  its  own  des- 
tiny. What  kind  of  planting  and  watering  has 
been  made  for  the  morrow.?  "I  planted,  AppoUos 
watered;  but  God  gave  the  increase."  I  Corin- 
thians S :  6. 

The  surroundings  of  the  boy  demand  more  at- 
tention than  is  accorded  him  under  the  regime  that 
professes  "he  has  come  into  his  own."  Already 
this  generic  fact  is  creeping  into  philanthropic 
souls,  and  through  charity  congresses,  mother 
clubs,  diflFerent  child-saving  organizations,  and 
juvenile  courts  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  land  an  effort  is  putting  forth  for  the  gen- 
eral good  of  the  wayward  boy  who  "has  come  into 
his  own."  For  the  want  of  saving  attention,  many 
children  misdirect  themselves,  following  the  lead- 
ings of  strong,  licensed,  immature,  inconsiderate, 
excessively  blind  impulse. 

Environment  is  part  of  the  mature  man.  Mem- 
ory is  particularly  a  record  of  environment.  The 
man  in  old  age  goes  back  in  memory  to  the  scenes 
of  his  youth  and  the  environments  that  constitute 


40  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

his  biography.  Necessarily  environment  is  an  ex- 
ternal matter,  while  the  elements  that  make  the 
man,  or  the  forces  within  that  produce  action,  are 
essentially  an  internal  or  subjective  matter.  While 
circumstances  alone  do  not  make  the  man,  they 
constitute  the  accidental  side  of  his  destiny.  The 
boy  is  father  of  the  man  cannot  be  true,  if  a  man 
is  what  he  is  because  of  his  surroundings.  For 
the  general  sense  is  that  life  is  as  we  make  it. 
Among  Catholics  a  boy  becomes  a  Catholic  because 
no  alternative  is  offered  him.  So  he  becomes  a  Mor- 
mon for  the  same  reason,  or  a  Mohammedan,  or  a 
Democrat  or  a  Republican. 


CHAPTER  VI 

EDUCATION 

It  is  commonly  understood  that  education  quali- 
fies a  boy  to  become  a  successful  bread  winner,  and 
also  enables  him  to  live  above  the  poorer  classes 
of  society.  This  large  question  has  been  widely 
and  fully  discussed  by  men  in  the  educational  har- 
ness as  well  as  by  men  out  of  it.  No  right-minded 
person  disputes  the  worth  and  need  of  education, 
though  he  may  lament  that  the  methods  of  instruc- 
tion do  not  come  up  to  the  full  measure  of  wisdom 
expected  of  those  in  the  pedagogical  and  learned 
profession. 

WHAT  IS  EDUCATION 

That  is  real  education  which  prepares  a  boy 
for  higher  life  physically,  intellectually,  spirit- 
ually. Compayre  regarded  the  educated  man  as 
the  heir  of  all  the  ages  past.  Locke  said:  "That 
which  a  gentleman  should  desire  for  his  son,  be- 
sides the  fortune  he  leaves  him,  is  first,  virtue; 
second,  prudence;  third,  good  manners;  fourth, 
instruction."  President  Taylor  of  Vassar  said: 
"This  is  the  debt  of  experience  to  inexperience, 
of  knowledge  to  ignorance."  In  brief,  education 
should  embrace  the  training  of  every  faculty  of 
the  conscious  being  to  its  fullest  extent  and  high- 
est endeavor.  In  this  day  when  character  building 
is  the  leading  thought  in  training  the  young,  it  is 
enforced  on  instructors  to  present  such  precepts 
41 


42  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

and  facts  as  will  build  good,  sound,  admirable 
character,  and  give  the  power  to  exercise  the  best 
effort  in  the  boy  and  girl. 

EACH    GENERATION    FOR    ITSELF 

The  education,  or  reformation,  of  the  present 
generation  is  effective  only  for  this  generation, 
and  must  be  repeated  in  the  next,  and  the  next, 
and  so  on  to  the  end  of  time.  For  education  is  not 
inheritable;  only  the  ability  to  receive  it  is  trans- 
missible. The  long,  ceaseless  effort  of  educated 
life  is  to  find  out  what  has  been  conceded  by  com- 
mon consent,  or  concensus  of  experience,  to  be 
proper  ideals,  ideas,  and  conduct — the  whole  of 
life.  And  never  wholly  found.  No  yesterdays 
ever  return ;  commonplace  as  it  may  seem  it  is  still 
necessary  to  repeat  school  elementary  facts  to 
every  new  child  that  arrives  on  earth.  This  neces- 
sity for  repetition  is  not  a  problem  that  the  "state 
artificer"  can  correct,  nor  can  law  or  state  give 
education  to  any  one  without  his  personal  effort 
to  obtain  it. 

As  far  as  the  child  is  involved,  after  birth,  the 
whole  matter  lies  in  its  education, — for  environ- 
ment is  but  a  means  of  training  the  soul,  the  es- 
sence of  the  creature.  Hence,  the  necessity  of  re- 
forming the  poor  conditions  and  of  making  the 
most  of  what  it  is, — after  birth,  after  heredity  has 
fashioned  it.  Whatever  helps  to  shape  the  life  of 
the  boy,  helps  to  determine  his  destiny,  and  what- 
ever he  is  in  thought  and  act  and  environment  he 
is  in  fact  for  all  time. 


EDUCATION  43 

IMPORTANCE  OF  TRAINING 

The  most  important  problem  of  the  times  is  the 
training  of  the  future  citizen.     Training  is  the 
destiny  of  the  man,  as  well  as  of  the  nation  and 
present  institutions.     Training  relates  to  educa- 
tion, blood,  and  environment.     It  is  to  establish 
causes  that  will  produce  their  invariable  results 
in  the  future.     This  is  accomplished  in  the  school, 
the  home,  the  church,  the  state.     In  any  scheme    , 
of  civilization,  or  state  of  society,  as  we  have  said,    \ 
is  the  question  of  the  training  of  the  child.     As     \ 
is  the  boy,  so  is  the  man;  as  is  the  man,  so  is  the      ; 
government  he   makes   and  lives   in.      The  whole      , 
matter  of  life,  of  government,  of  church,  of  home, 
depends  on  the  character  of  the  training  of  the 
boys  and  girls.    In  all  ages  heresy  (what  the  other 
fellow  believes)  is  wrong  eternally,  destroys  one's 
friends,  and  must  be  extirpated!     Tolerance  is  a 
great  virtue,  not  always  in  all  things  at  all  times 
practiced.      A  Roman  boy  became  a  Roman;    a 
Greek,  a  Greek;  an  Arab,  an  Arab;  and  it  was 
difficult  to  conceive  that  anything  good  could  come 
out  of  Nazareth. 

RULING    FORCE 

The  world,  to  be  sure,  can't  be  regulated  alone 
by  logic,  for  there  is  more  in  a  man  than  mere 
mind ;  there  is  feeling  that  knows  no  logic.  Feeling, 
not  logic,  rules  mobs,  battles,  quarrels.  The  pub- 
lic is  a  mighty  power,  the  united  force  of  men. 
It  moulds  the  press,  but  the  educational,  cultural, 


44  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

social,  and  economic  conditions  of  the  day  mould 
the  public. 

However,  it  is  not  our  purpose  to  deal  with  the 
art,  idealisms,  impressionisms  of  life,  but  to  touch 
briefly  the  practicalities  and  usefulness — not  neces- 
sarily the  utilitarian  views — of  life.  The  utili- 
tarian view  of  education,  as  it  seems  to  us,  looks 
at  nothing  that  does  not  make  for  greed.  The 
fact  is  that  there  is  something  higher  and  better 
than  the  mere  earthly  sense  of  commercial  material- 
ism; there  is  love,  happiness,  peace,  satisfaction, 
good,  devotion,  mind,  soul — not  all  animal  and 
physical.  It  is  regrettable  that  the  schools  of  the 
hour  are  too  prone  to  place  first  utilitarian  ideas, 
commercialism,  industrial  success,  and  what  will 
bring  material  wealth,  as  if  that  were  the  highest 
good  and  the  chief  end  of  man.  Money  is  a  ma- 
terial gift,  and  tends  to  harden,  as  gold  is  hard, 
the  finer  sensibilities  of  men  and  a  nation. 

MAN  IS  OF  THE  EARTH,  EARTHY 

Education  shapes  a  nation,  people,  classes,  fam- 
ilies, individuals,  churches,  cities,  states,  laws, 
views,  and  institutions,  as  already  signified,  and 
makes  men  distinguished  and  distinct  from  others 
unlearned.  And  it  is  scarcely  needful  to  say  that 
ignorance  is  a  crime  in  the  sense  that  poverty  is 
a  crime. 

In  a  discussion  of  any  phase  of  the  problem  of 
human  sagacity  and  criminality  (error-straying), 
it  is  not  necessary  to  recall  the  fact  that  man  is 


EDUCATION  45 

close  to  the  green  grass  (of  it  and  soon  covered 
by  it),  as  well  as  beneath  the  blue  arch  of  heaven. 
For  this  idea  is  the  basic  one  in  every  reader's 
mind, — that  man  is  a  human  animal  and  is  gifted 
with  powers  to  be  tempted  and  led  wrong. 

In  all  the  catalogue  of  human  emotions  that  of 
self-interest  is  first  and  chief.  There  are  blind, 
uneducated,  undirected  impulses  that  sway  him, 
tending  to  excess  and  injury  to  self  and  to  the 
objective, — civic  conditions  and  all  external  fac- 
tors of  life  and  its  institutions.  Self-interest  un- 
trained leads  to  barbaric  conditions,  and  all  the 
best  of  civilization  deteriorates.  That  is  the  seri- 
ous error  in  the  utilitarian  views  of  life  and  the 
immoral  greed  running  through  our  social  veins. 

SCHOOLS  DEAL  WITH  PSYCHIC   FORCES 

Schools  deal  more  with  the  forces  and  condi- 
tions of  human  economy  than  with  the  physical 
elements  of  nature, — deal  with  soul  problems,  the 
psychic  elements  of  the  coming  race.  Schools 
should  be  a  corrective  of  street  vices  that  fascinate, 
of  evening  comradeships  that  are  often  vicious  and 
low,  of  home  indulgences  that  are  freaky  and  fault- 
ful.  It  is  their  duty  to  train  to  habits  of  reading, 
and  inoculate  with  the  sense  of  justice,  worth, 
utility,  and  to  give  full  credit  to  what  the  boy  is 
and  does  in  his  own  sphere  as  his  part  in  the  game 
of  life.  The  day  has  passed  when  the  public  school 
investment  can  be  justified  alone  on  the  ground 
that  it  reduces,  if  it  does  not  eliminate,  illiteracy. 


46  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

It  should  have  a  moral  reaching  effect  also.  The 
want  of  taste  for  a  book  is  an  evil  in  our  day.  The 
books  of  the  schools  are  largely  to  be  credited  with 
making  a  generation  that  demands  and  secures 
public  libraries.  The  boy  that  loves  books  and 
buys  and  reads  them,  that  is  his  salvation  and 
after  success. 

CAREERS  FOR  THE  BOYS 

The  mission  of  education  at  this  time  is  more 
than  to  teach  a  boy  he  may  be  President  some  day, 
if  he  studies  hard  and  does  as  he  is  told. 

Please  note,  once  for  all,  that  we  wish  not  to 
be  thought  one  of  the  destructive  reformers  of  most 
things  modern,  simply  because  it  is  old  and  dwells 
among  us;  for  we  have  too  much  respect  for  the 
wisdom  of  others  and  too  little  confidence  in  our 
own  judgment  and  ability  to  comprehend  the  limit 
of  human  attainment.  We  are  no  Diogenes  hunt- 
ing with  a  lantern  for  an  honest  man.  But  to  pro- 
ceed. 

The  leisure  class  theory  of  society  is  that  the 
professions  confer  social  distinctions.  Now,  not 
one  boy  in  several  millions  can  be  President,  and 
so  to  train  children  toward  an  end  that  means 
failure  for  all  but  one  in  very  many  is  not  the 
true  mission  of  education.  The  conditions  of 
modern  times  demand  something  else  than  Presi- 
dent, and  for  most  boys  something  else  than  a  pro- 
fessional career.  A  Democratic  education — that 
is,  taught  in  all  things  and  trained  in  none — is  a 


EDUCATION  47 

dramatic  waste  of  possible  manhood  and  useful- 
ness, and  spells  failure  for  most  boys.  Industrial 
schools  grow  out  of  the  modern  demand  for  skilled 
physical  labor.  While  the  dreamer  has  his  place 
and  use  in  life,  yet  there  must  be  hewers  of  wood 
and  drawers  of  water,  burden-bearers  and  toilers. 
They  are  a  utilitarian  necessity, — for  without 
physical  comforts,  what  is  the  rest  of  life!  The 
call  to-day  is  for  more  and  better  practical  en- 
gineers, carvers  in  wood,  workers  in  the  mines,  dig- 
gers in  the  streets,  farmers ;  and  yet  most  parents 
want  their  children  to  be  professors,  lawyers,  doc- 
tors, and  dwell  in  town,  and  not  necessary,  com- 
mon laborers.  \ 

The  schools  must  be  adjusted  to  the  industrial 
life  of  the  community,  for  the  problem  of  bread, 
clothes,  shelter,  tools,  fuel,  light,  and  social  needs 
is  a  vital  one.  The  actual  daily  life  of  a  people 
is  one  of  the  chief  centers  of  human  interest,  and 
success  therein  demands  training  for  it.  Compe- 
tent provision  for  training  schools  for  the  work 
of  life  has  not  yet  been  secured,  except  perhaps 
in  the  cultured  professions;  not  in  agriculture, 
business  trades,  mechanical  pursuits,  productive 
industries,  or  mercantile  affairs.  Agricultural 
schools  would  cultivate  farm  pride  and  keep  the 
boys  on  the  farm.  And,  too,  the  farm  must  be 
made  attractive  to  induce  the  boy  to  stay  there. 
The  entire  community  needs  to  be  in  closer  rela- 
tion with  the  rural  schools.  And  the  emphasis 
should  be  on  good  cooking  and  the  ability  to  make 
good  fences. 


48  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

CHIEF   WORK   OF   SCHOOLS 

Character-building  is  the  chief  business  of  the 
schools,  and  this  means  that  there  should  be  les- 
sons in  manners,  morals,  human  rights,  property 
\    rights,  commercialship,  ownership,  industry,  hon- 
I   esty.      Schools   are   founded   for   the   purpose  of 
!  teaching  what  will  bring  success  in  life,  happiness, 
well-being;  for  without  success  there  can  be  little 
happiness  to  an  active,  ambitious  mind.     Manners 
are  a  test  of  character;  and  the  word  "manners" 
is  here  synonymous  with  the  word  "kindness,"  the 
outward  sign  of  the  soul.     Courtesy  is  not  entirely 
something    fastidious    and    superficial,    though  it 
may  conceal  elements  of  a  gross  nature. 

Overestimation  of  pupils  is  justifiable  on  no 
grounds, — is  an  evil  not  even  justified  as  a  tem- 
porary expedient.  Overtaxation  subverts  its  end, 
injures  health,  wearies  the  unaccustomed  mind  un- 
til it  fails  to  grasp  and  retain,  and  defeats  the  pur- 
pose of  study, — hurts  physically,  mentally,  and 
morally.  On  the  other  hand,  some  slow-minded 
pupils  need  a  spur  and  a  help;  must  be  directed 
and  led  until  a  habit  of  attention  and  effort  is  ob- 
tained, until  it  can  distinguish  between  liking  a 
thing  and  doing  it.  So  often,  too,  by  directing 
a  child's  attention  to  a  fault  until  it  is  able  to 
recognize  similar  errors  by  its  own  volition,  and 
by  winning  it  away  from  the  fault  instead  of  forc- 
ing it  into  a  spirit  of  opposition  and  in  spite  adopt- 
ing it,  the  teacher  can  do  great  good  and  exercise 
the  greatest  genius. 


EDUCATION  49 

THE    TEACHER 

The  school-room  horizon  is  not  very  large  nor 
very  enlarging  to  the  teacher.  But  her  opinion 
of  it  is  such  as  any  one  would  have  in  the  same 
limited  environment.  This,  however,  doesn't  alter 
her  limited  horizon.     She  is  in  grooves ;  in  stays. 

It  must  be  said  that  she  is  not  always  scathless. 
By  her  repulsion,  her  antagonistic  and  nagging 
manner  she  drives  some  boys  into  the  streets  and 
alleys ;  thence  they  drift  into  hock  and  become  the 
victims  of  law. 

To  make  noble,  loyal,  dutiful,  proud  citizens  she 
must  herself  be  saturated  with  our  political  ideals 
and  possess  the  inestimable  quality  of  self-control. 
For  democracy  is  the  last  hope  of  our  race,  and 
our  schools  must  possess  it  deeply,  broadly.  The 
boy  should  be  first  and  last,  and  more  holy  to  the 
teacher  than  material  things  or  the  passing  insti- 
tutions of  the  hour.  The  new  man  must  be  fitted 
for  the  new  and  better  future,  and  she  fails  to 
grasp  the  full  force  of  her  work — God's  work,  not 
hers — if  she  fails  to  see  this.  A  republic  without 
efficient  common  schools  is  impossible.  And  every 
school  should  be  an  inviting  home  and  a  haven, 
under  due  restraints,  to  the  boy.  She  must  see 
the  future  as  well  as  the  now,  and  qualify  the 
future  men  and  women  for  it,  having  a  keen  ap- 
preciation of  the  real  wants  of  the  social  fabric, 
possessing  unflinching  integrity  and  an  absorbing 
love  of  her  work,  comprehending  a  broad  human- 
ity, owning  the  spirit  of  the  learner,  giving  her 


50  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

charges  a  deep  sense  of  scholarship,  a  love  of 
study  and  honest  independence,  the  reading  habit, 
the  character  and  manners  of  a  gentleman,  and 
a  warm  sense  of  fealty  to  his  native  land.  A  boy 
should  be  taught  to  understand  that  the  more  he 
makes  of  his  opportunities  the  more  good  will 
come  to  him  and  to  others.  And  the  teacher  who 
does  not  see  that  a  ragamuffin  child  needs  the  same 
training  that  a  rich  man's  does  has  missed  her 
vocation;  for  not  to  see  this  is  to  misapprehend 
the  object  of  education  and  its  true  meaning  and 
mission  in  the  progress  of  the  world  and  its  re- 
demption of  the  boy  and  the  salvation  of  Ameri- 
canism. It  is,  we  all  see,  a  humiliating  confession 
to  make,  that  few  teachers  know  the  deep  meaning 
of  democracy,  or  have  felt  its  obligation  and  uplift 
in  the  procession  of  the  centuries.  The  misfit 
teacher  is  the  cause  of  much  inefficiency  in  life, 
for  with  the  destiny  of  blood  and  cell  and  the 
slavery  of  environment  the  training  enters  next  in 
shaping  life. 

SCHOOL      SYSTEM      SUPPLANTING      PROPER      MOTIVES 

Since  the  teacher's  success  has  come  to  be  rated, 
for  one  thing,  upon  the  attendance  of  her  pupils, 
she  is  forced  to  base  her  interests  upon  the  good 
per  cent,  of  attendance.  The  boy  to  whom  her 
personality  is  objectionable  is  at  length  brought 
to  hate  her  for  her  incessant  nagging,  and  he  flees 
from  his  hateful  environment.  Then  she  appeals 
to  the  authorities  to  deal  with  him  as  an  incor- 


EDUCATION  61 

rigible,  in  order  that  she  may  erase  his  name  from 
her  roll  and  keep  up  the  per  cent,  of  her  attend- 
ance. 

The  crowded  school  room,  in  which  the  per- 
sonal, close,  individual,  human  touch  is  submerged 
in  what  may  be  termed  mass  drill,  almost  makes 
teaching  a  mockery.  Little  chance  is  given  to 
individuality  of  effort,  and  the  child  becomes  but 
a  unit  in  the  crushing,  machine-like  system, — a 
Procrustean  method  of  shaping  all  alike. 

Popular  education  again  comes  short  by  its 
arbitrariness  and  lack  of  diplomacy  in  handling 
the  child, — an  unstudied  life  essence  to  the  teacher. 
The  power  to  compel  obedience  in  the  school- 
room is  sometimes  extended  out  to  the  parents 
in  the  home.  School  principals,  it  is  meet  to  say, 
should  be  examined  to  find  out  what  native  dip- 
lomatic skill  they  possess,  as  well  as  for  their 
quick  wit  and  experience. 

SCHOOL  CUEaiCULUM 

There  are  and  have  been  too  many  "new- 
fangled" notions  imposed  on  the  schools  by  egotis- 
tical wiseacres.  The  experiments  and  ideas  of 
some  one  who  hopes  to  profit  by  them  have  too 
often  been  tried  and  failed,  as  they  should,  but 
to  the  injury  of  the  marvellous  school  system. 
The  schools  are  too  sacred  for  experimentation. 
The  child's  memory  is  the  only  faculty  that  re- 
tains facts,  which  subsequently  become  premises 
for   conclusions   and   action.      The   only   possible 


62  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

way  to  reach  the  memory  is  through  the  eye,  the 
ear,  the  nose,  the  mouth,  the  touch, — the  only  pos- 
sible channels  to  the  brain.  The  pendulum  must 
swing  back  to  this  from  the  fad  of  "absorption." 
There  are  essentials,  non-essentials,  and  fads 
in  the  stuffed  curriculum  today.  Too  much  at- 
tention is  devoted  to  living  foreign  languages,  ut- 
terly useless  to  the  ordinary  American.  And 
there  is  also  too  much  "physical  culture"  so 
called.  And  an  excessive  devotion  by  "special- 
ists" to  nature  study,  science,  drawing,  stenog- 
raphy, "fads,  fancies  and  follies"  outside  of  the 
three  R's  at  too  tender  a  period  of  life.  There 
is  necessarily  neglect  of  the  fundamentals,  when 
fads  engross  the  time  and  distract  the  attention. 
The  curriculum  has  become  topheavy  and  imprac- 
tical, looking  more  to  the  training  of  professional 
men  than  for  the  daily  walks  of  life. 

THE    CURSE    OF    EDUCATION 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  subject  of 
higher  education;  of  a  literary  training  in  a  col- 
lege.    But  it  seems  fitting  to  say  a  word  here. 

Horace  Greeley  wrote  to  a  young  Oxford  grad- 
uate who  had  applied  to  him  for  employment:  "I 
utterly  loathe  and  detest  the  kind  of  education 
you  have  received,  because  it  has  unfitted  you  for 
life,  and  has  given  you  no  means  of  taking  care 
of  yourself,  or  of  making  yourself  useful  in  your 
generation.  ...  I  thank  God  that  I  was 
graduated  from  a  New  England  very  common 
school." 


EDUCATION  58 

The  college  course  being  undertaken  without 
definite  aim,  many  matriculating  for  a  "good 
time,"  a  young  man  is  graduated  an  idler.  It  is 
not  the  purpose  of  colleges  to  educate  a  privileged 
class,  but  to  prepare  men  to  fight  their  way  under 
modern  conditions  of  affairs.  If  this  is  not  done, 
the  higher  education  is  a  failure.  The  great  bur- 
den of  the  American  republic  is  to-day  the  number 
of  educated,  untrained  floaters  who  are  incapable 
of  efficient  effort.  Some  thoughtful  men  attribute 
this  incompetent  fitting  for  life  work  to  the  pre- 
paratory schools,  whence  the  boys  come  from  the 
elementary  kindergarten  methods  "flabbier  and 
flabbier  in  mind."  Self-reliant,  capable  men  and 
women  cannot  be  made  of  boys  and  girls  who  are 
merely  entertained  in  schools.  Said  Mr.  Harold 
E.  Gorst  of  London :  "The  dearth  of  genius  to-day 
is  due  to  the  system  of  education,  which  arrests 
the  process  of  development  of  imagination  by 
pounding  facts  into  the  brain."  It  is  not  intended 
to  say  here  that  higher  education  is  a  mistake 
in  all  cases,  but  it  is  true  that  the  tendency  of  all 
schools  to-day  is  wrong,  and  too  frequently  re- 
presses what  nature  meant  a  man  to  be,  nipping 
in  the  head  certain  abilities,  and  crushing  individ- 
ual development,  and  holding  out  ambitions  be- 
yond capacity,  and  bringing  forth  a  quantity  of 
trained  superficiality.  The  fact  is,  in  a  word, 
that  the  better  thinker  is  the  better  liver.  ^One's 
dominant  thought  writes  his  biography.  It  has 
even  been  declared  by  some  men,  looking  at  school 


64  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

results,  that  ignorance  is  a  stimulus  of  the  imag- 
ination, while  cramming  the  mind  with  theoretical 
and  mere  book  knowledge  is  destructive  of  the 
normal  functions  of  observation  and  reflection  and 
the  production  of  original  creations — a  race  of 
imitators.  Mere  information  doesn't  educate  nor 
train  in  the  power  of  orientation.  In  this  view 
books  are  dangerous  things.  The  charge  is  made, 
not  without  basis,  that  the  tendency  of  schools  is 
to  make  the  boys  effeminate,  due  to  the  want  of 
masculine  force  at  certain  stages  of  the  boy  life. 
It  was  the  opinion  of  Andrew  Carnegie,  the  Skibo 
laird,  that  a  man  who  has  to  make  his  way  in  life 
has  little  use  for  education;  and  he  allowed  that 
a  man  born  to  wealth  rarely  "amounts  to  any- 
thing." Professor  Hugo  Muensterburg  thought 
that  if  two-thirds  of  the  university  professors 
were  killed  off  there  would  be  fewer  weak  and 
mollycoddle  men  come  out  of  "our  academic  sys- 
tem in  our  highest  institutions  of  learning" — 
"with  a  few  notable  exceptions  so  many  second- 
class  men." 

COLLEGE  ATHLETICS 

The  good  of  college  athletics,  physically  and 
mentally,  is  largely  overshadowed  by  the  evils 
attending  the  games.  All  mass  games  of  violent 
struggle  are  physiologically  a  mistake.  And  the 
term  of  reproach,  "gentlemen  sports,"  has  come 
to  be  applied  to  the  type  of  student  graduating 
from   eastern   universities.      They  have   absorbed 


EDUCATION  56 

enough  evil  in  college  in  four  years  to  spoil  their 
usefulness  for  life.  Scholarship  is  deteriorating 
because  it  is  becoming  less  an  aim  of  college  life, — 
worm-eaten  by  college  athletics.  Western  insti- 
tutions of  learning  are  not  yet  so  dominated  by 
the  spirit  of  the  animal  stadium,  the  show  ground 
of  physical  prowess.  It  has  been  found  on  inves- 
tigation that  college  athletics  does  not  produce 
strong,  sound,  long-lived  men.  Under  the  divine 
law  of  reaction  the  squandering  of  the  vital  force 
so  recklessly  brings  about  its  sure  evil  results. 
The  after  lives  of  graduate  athletes  show  that 
"nearly  all  football  players,  baseball  men,  and 
lawn  tennis  experts  have  weak  hearts,  and  are 
more  liable  to  other  forms  of  disease  than  men 
who  take  a  more  rational  interest  in  the  affairs 
of  life."  Few  great  college  athletes  achieve  more 
than  a  moderate  success  in  life,  priding  more  in 
their  physical  attainments  than  their  mental  ac- 
quirements. They  were  not  leaders  in  studies, 
as  a  rule,  as  it  was  not  possible  for  them  to  be,  the 
athletic  field  demanding  too  much  time,  attention, 
energy,  interest,  enthusiasm,  and  dividing  the 
mind.  CoUege  sports  also  tend  to  make  bravados, 
liars,  gamblers,  and  dissipated  habits.  The  young 
athlete  starts  into  his  greater  life  with  the  repu- 
tation of  the  gridiron  smirching  him  and  with 
money-prostituted  ideas  as  an  asset. 

COLLEGE    FRATERNITIES 

There  is   not  wanting  evidence  to   show,   too, 


56  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

that  college  fraternities  dissipate  attention  and 
detract  from  the  student's  success.  The  public 
decision  is  that  the  good  in  college  societies  and 
other  such  organizations  (which  can  be  omitted 
without  being  missed)  is  overcome  largely,  if  not 
wholly,  by  the  harm  they  bring  to  the  mental  and 
moral  status  of  the  young  man.  This  is  the  day 
when  the  spirit  of  organization  prevails  every- 
where, and  the  young  sprigs  at  school  have  caught 
it.  Somehow  it  is  supposed  to  confer  something 
of  distinction,  that  after  all,  is  valueless.  There 
have  been  efforts  made  by  school  authorities  to 
do  away  with  them,  on  the  ground  that  they  are 
positively  harmful.  It  has  been  said  by  men  at  the 
head  of  the  city  schools,  Washington,  D.  C,  that 
"the  presence  of  secret  societies  is  the  evidence 
of  a  decaying,  or  of  a  very  young,  civilization," 
and  that  they  decrease  "loyalty  to  the  schools  as 
a  whole."  They  distinguish  between  the  rich  and 
the  poor  students.  It  has  been  said  that  the  high 
school  "frat"  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  one 
who  has  obtained  a  liberal  education  in  snobbish- 
ness, in  loafing,  in  "lying  down  on  his  job,"  and 
in  the  manipulation  of  school  politics, — not  very 
creditable  attainments.  Public  school  societies 
have  been  called  "preposterous  excrescences, 
breeding  in  young  minds  class  prejudice,  petty 
bigotries,  and  the  most  undemocratic  attitude 
toward  their  fellows,"  and  leading  to  outlandish 
and  heathenish  deeds.  They  have  been  long  re- 
garded as  prejudicial  to  the  schools,  and  courts 


EDUCATION  57 

have  declared  them  something  apart  from  the  edu- 
cational scope  of  the  schools.  It  is  known  that 
as  a  general  thing  the  scholarship  of  the  mem- 
bers of  fraternities  and  sororities  falls  below  par. 
Presidents  of  colleges  have  said  that  they  brought 
about  a  system  of  social  and  intellectual  life  that 
is  the  gravest  peril  to  institutions  of  learning. 
The  danger  of  club  life  is  that  it  standardizes  the 
undergraduate,  makes  him  a  man  without  opin- 
ions, conforms  him  to  a  type,  and  submerges  and 
cheapens  his  mind.  They  are  a  social  menace  and 
an  expression  of  the  mass  or  gang  spirit.  Every 
unwashed  outbreak  of  disorder  originates  among 
the  "intellectual  hobos"  of  the  fraternities,  who 
are  proud  of  their  eccentric  achievements  and  their 
groundhog  burroughings  in  the  byways  of 
naughtiness.     These  societies  are  not  needed. 

"give  the  boy  a  chance" 

Clear  the  home  of  pipes,  tobacco,  big  brother's 
beer,  sister's  soothing  syrup,  mamma's  headache 
powders  and  opium,  oaths,  quarrels,  rowdyism, 
and  give  the  lad  a  cleaner  inheritance,  a  better 
hold  on  health  and  morality,  and  encouraging 
opportunity  to  use  the  best  in  him.  The  boy 
needs  guidance,  not  license. 


CHAPTER  VII 
PARENTAL  MISTAKES 

Much  that  may  be  said  upon  this  subject  re- 
lates to  environment. 

In  the  days  of  the  English  Queen  Elizabeth,  the 
harshness  of  the  parents  toward  their  children 
would  be  condemned  now  as  brutality.  The  story 
is  told  that  Elizabeth  told  her  tutor,  Roger  Ash- 
cam,  that  she  read  Plato  as  a  means  of  refuge 
from  the  severity  of  her  parents,  who  would 
"sharply  taunt  her  and  give  her  pinches,  nips, 
and  bobs"  ( — "hickied"  her — ),  if  she  displeased 
them  in  any  degree.  Erasmus  said  that  English 
parents  were  like  schoolmasters  to  their  children, 
and  that  the  schoolmasters  were  like  overseers  of 
houses  of  correction.  Children  feared  and  trembled 
at  the  sight  of  their  parents,  and  sons,  forty 
years  old,  stood  bareheaded  before  their  fathers 
and  did  not  dare  to  speak  without  permission, — 
sterner  than  Dr.  Gilbert  in  Holland's  "Miss  Gil- 
bert's Career."  And  grown-up  daughters  never 
sat  down  in  their  mother's  presence,  but  stood  in 
abject  silence  at  the  farther  end  of  the  room, 
and  when  weary  of  standing  were  perhaps  allowed 
to  kneel  on  a  cushion.  Indeed,  it  was  a  privilege 
to  be  admitted  to  their  presence  at  all,  and  it  was 
only  granted  at  regulated  periods  of  the  day. 
Mothers  carried  fans  with  handles  a  yard  long 
with  which  they  beat  their  daughters.    And  to-day 

58 


PARENTAL  MISTAKES  59 

still  some  parents,  swayed  by  the  blind  impulse 
of  unreasoning  anger,  brutally  beat  the  children 
till  they  have  glutted  their  vengeance. 

HOME   GOVERNMENT 

No  sort  of  government  requires  greater  wisdom 
and  stricter  judicial  system  of  punishments  than 
the  home  government;  and  yet  few  of  them  have 
any  proper  notion  at  all  of  correct  family  man- 
agement. Home  incompetency  is  the  manifest 
destiny  of  most  homes.  In  one  home  may  be  ex- 
cessive strictures  and  severity;  in  another  too 
great  laxity,  leniency,  indulgence — no  regular 
government  or  discipline.  Now  children  can't 
raise  themselves  well.  It  has  long  been  said  that 
the  rod  at  times  is  a  kindness  to  the  wayward 
boy.  While  parents  should  not  provoke  their 
children  to  wrath,  neither  should  children  give 
cause  of  anger  to  parents.     Ephesians  6:1,4. 

Family  government  has  swayed  from  the  Puri- 
tanical strictness  to  the  system  of  "anything  to 
please  the  kid."  Indecisive,  nerveless,  careless, 
weary  mothers  yield  too  readily  in  order  to  "get 
rid  of  the  kid."  The  abdication  of  the  parent  for 
the  child  who  "has  come  into  his  own"  is  more 
than  a  joke.  Child-sway  is  the  power  in  the  home, 
up  to  a  period  far  beyond  the  little  kicking  auto- 
crat. 

Some  parents  exercise  what  teamsters  call  a 
"flash  whip" ;  that  is,  one  that  pops  over  the  horse 
all  the  time  and  never  strikes.     The  child  soon 


60  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

sees  that  the  "flash  threat"  is  harmless  and  mean- 
ingless, and  so  goes  on  its  own  way  utterly  disre- 
garding it.  The  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will,  fickle, 
transient,  leading  nowhere  except  to  ruin.  Ever- 
lasting obedience  is  the  price  of  liberty.  And 
spasmodic  severity  is  no  less  a  crime  than  home 
anarchy.  Parental  abuse  exists  as  much  in  sever- 
ity as  in  indulgence,  or  in  permitting  a  thing  be- 
cause the  child  wants  it.  It  has  been  said  in  laugh- 
ing sincerity  that  the  very  best  curfew  ordinance 
is  that  one  adopted  in  the  family  authorizing  "the 
old  man  to  act  as  mayor,  city  council,  night  watch 
and  calaboose  keeper,  and  to  impose  fine  and  pun- 
ishment and  the  hickory  gad  without  the  bother 
of  passing  a  lot  of  ordinances  to  secure  the  en- 
forcement of  those  already  on  record." 

TOLERATED    WILFULNESS    A    MISTAKE 

The  child  that  dictates  the  domestic  policy  in 
its  angry  moods  is  not  being  taught  the  proper 
sense  of  obedience  and  order.  He  not  only  learns 
to  deceive  his  parents,  but  to  control  them  as  well. 
He  respects  no  will  but  his  own,  and  defies  parent, 
teacher,  rules,  laws,  authority,  and  comes  indig- 
nantly to  refuse  to  be  obedient  to  any  restraints. 
Being  "good"  to  such  a  boy,  and  persuading 
yourself  that  "no  one  understands  him"  and  that 
you  "can  control  him  with  soft  talk  instead  of 
scolding  him,"  is  a  certain  license  to  wrong  doing. 
Ninety  per  cent,  of  bad  boys  come  from  yielding 
after  no  has  been  repeatedly  said. 


PARENTAL  MISTAKES  61 

It  must  not  be  understood  that  children,  nat- 
urally animals,  need  not  be  dealt  kindly  with  or 
taught  the  law  of  kindness,  for  without  it  they 
will  be  but  subdued  heathens.  They  should  be 
taught  the  larger  sense  of  humanity,  self-sacrifice, 
and  the  rights  of  others,  as  well  as  their  duties 
toward  them. 

HUMAN    KINDNESS 

Human  ethics,  in  the  practical  sense,  is  not 
prominently  nor  persistently  taught  as  a  branch 
in  the  public  schools,  nor  in  the  home.  And  it  has 
been  in  no  public  school  curriculum  until  recently 
in  the  United  States,  and  then  but  tentatively. 
"Put  yourself  in  his  place"  is  not  taught  by  daily 
application.  "How  would  you  like  for  the  other 
fellow  to  treat  you  that  way"  is  not  pressed  home 
as  a  lesson  controlling  in  life  for  good.  "Do  to 
the  other  as  you  would  have  him  do  to  you"  has 
been  distorted  into,  "Do  others  or  they  will  do 
you."  Nothing  made  clear.  The  selfish  /  pre- 
cedes being  kind  to  the  other,  considerate  at  home, 
"helping  mother,"  sharing  with  the  rest,  loaning 
his  things,  dealing  kindly  with  pets,  and  manifest- 
ing such  thoughtful  tenderness  as  will  make  him  a 
better,  braver,  nobler  citizen.  They  know  not  how 
to  endure,  but  submit  to  wilfulness  and  passion. 
The  emotional  side  of  the  boy  needs  to  be  directed 
and  trained  as  well  as  his  intellectual,  for  without 
a  round,  full  training  of  the  unit  instead  of  a 
fraction  of  it,  the  boy  will  always  feel  the  want 


62  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

of  it.  In  a  word,  they  must  be  taught  self-gov- 
ernment. It  doesn't  hurt  the  boy  to  yield  instead 
of  the  parent.  When  he  hears  his  mother  say, 
"I  can't  do  anything  with  him,"  he  smiles  sweetly. 
The  older  head  should  logically  control,  not  the 
inexperienced  childish  head  that  God  gave  for  the 
parent  to  rear.  What  does  the  child  know  about 
right  ways?  It  obeys  the  instinct  of  emotion — "I 
want" — ^with  no  experimental  knowledge  of  the 
right  or  wrong. 

TRUSTING  THEM  TO  LUCK 

The  spoiled  child  is  a  grave  affair,  and  not  in- 
frequently becomes  a  curse  to  his  home  and  his 
city.  Despite  prayers  for  his  good  and  "leaving 
him  in  the  care  of  God,"  who  has  entrusted  the 
boy's  training  to  the  parent  who  in  no  way  can 
neglect  his  duty  and  throw  back  the  responsibility 
of  his  rearing  upon  God,  thus  shirking  a  serious 
duty,  the  boy  goes  wrong  because  of  the  neglect. 
It  is  not  love  that  humors  a  child's  every  whim, 
"because  he  wants  it."  Dreading  the  temper- 
tears  of  a  healthy  child  is  no  sufficient  reason  for 
"giving  way  to  him."  Agonized  weeping  of  a  sor- 
rowful heart,  broken  and  trampled  upon  in  later 
years  by  the  boy  because  of  foolish  parental  indul- 
gence, will  not  reclaim  him.  The  peace-blasting 
young  man  tramples  ruthlessly  on  a  despised, 
weak  parent's  heart,  and  becomes  lawless  through 
indulgence.  His  wilfulness  is  to  be  guided,  not 
eliminated  or  crushed  out    or  squelched.     Irregu- 


PARENTAL  MISTAKES  63 

lar,  impulsive  control  comes  in  time  to  be  despised 
by  the  lad,  and  he  ceases  to  regard  such  fluctuat- 
ing authority.  He  soon  learns  that  his  persistence 
secures  his  way,  and  he  smiles  at  vacillating  de- 
cisions. The  little  Caesar  knows  the  weakness  of 
the  government  under  which  he  dwells,  and  it  quails 
in  the  presence  of  the  howling  pinafore  scape- 
grace. Sometimes  the  rebellious  violence  of  the 
nursery  tot  makes  home  a  pandemonium.  The 
weakness  of  Froebel's  system  is  his  magna  charta 
of  childhood,  so  to  name  it.  It  deals  with  the  sub- 
jective without  a  competent  sense  of  external  du- 
ties, and  cultivates  a  social  liberty  that  in  the  end 
destroys  the  usefulness  of  the  child. 

CHIVALROUS    RESPECT 

Especially  at  home  the  little  one  should  learn 
to  speak  the  truth,  hate  a  lie  and  the  vile,  play 
fair,  and  be  chivalrous,  polite  and  respectful. 
These  qualities  come  not  naturally,  are  not 
drummed  in  by  any  formula  of  don't s  and  do's  and 
incessant  nagging.  The  home  should  be  the  most 
inviting,  welcome  place  in  the  world,  where  the 
spirit  of  the  mother,  not  with  too  many  words, 
charms  and  guides.  It  should  be  cheerful,  even 
a  ragtime  quality  of  it,  rather  than  be  a  place 
of  storm  and  shadow  and  gloom.  Children  are 
naturally  cheerful,  have  a  right  to  claim  love  and 
sweetness,  and  hence  they  should  be  immersed 
in  it.  The  habit  of  happiness  is  not  an  impos- 
sibility.    Gluttony  and  fretting  have  no  good  in 


64  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

them.  In  point  of  fact  parents  owe  a  cheerful 
home  to  their  children.  He  is  also  entitled  to 
respect.  The  Japanese  are  sensitive  about  chil- 
dren, and  everybody  conspires  to  make  the  life 
of  a  child  a  happy  one.  There,  so  much  respect 
is  shown  for  the  little  ones  that,  up  to  a  certain 
age,  grown  people  get  up  from  their  seats  in  the 
street  cars  and  give  them  to  the  children. 

A    CAUSE    OF    DELINQUENCY 

Juvenile  delinquency,  in  all  cases,  however  as- 
sertive this  may  seem,  is  chargeable  to  the  parents. 
They  are  responsible  for  the  boy's  misconduct. 
Courts  dealing  with  juvenile  offenders  have  come 
to  the  same  conclusion.  Somehow,  in  subtile  ways 
the  parents  know  not  of,  in  ill-ordered  homes  the 
parents  lose  control  of  the  boy.  The  parents  pos- 
sess traits  of  character  sadly  in  need  of  reform. 
Laws  should  recognize  this  fact,  and  affix  discre- 
tionary penalties  upon  the  lawless  boy.  The  par- 
ents do  not  intend  to  injure  their  boy,  and  think 
they  do  not,  but  the  boy  is  ruined  by  them  not- 
withstanding their  better  intentions.  Probably 
they,  in  a  fit  of  anger,  punish  the  boy  out  of  just 
proportion  to  the  offense;  or  excuse  his  misdeed 
at  other  times;  or  deal  out  punishment  without 
any  sense  of  right  and  justice;  or  enforce  disci- 
pline in  accordance  with  their  emotions ;  or  impose 
unmerited  suffering;  or  "lecture"  at  improper 
times ;  or  merely  squeeze  out  a  tear  to  show  how 
he  has  hurt  them;  or  in  a  thousand  other  ways 


PARENTAL  MISTAKES  65 

mismanage  him.  In  the  mind  of  the  child,  paren- 
tal authority  should  be  final,  the  last  court  of 
appeal,  and  just  and  complete. 

HOME  AUTHORITY 

Unfulfilled  promises  are  lies  and  teach  the 
child  to  lie.  And  it  is  a  mistake  to  think  your  boy 
can  do  no  wrong,  and  a  greater  mistake  to  accept 
his  colored,  distorted,  pieced-out,  ex  parte  evidence 
in  his  own  case  as  embracing  the  whole  of  the 
story.  It  is  the  proper  thing  to  do  to  let  the  boy 
understand  you  are  going  to  hear  the  other  side 
of  the  case,  and  then  make  the  full  investigation. 
The  complement  of  the  rule  of  obedience  is  that 
of  truthfulness.  Exaggeration  and  extravagant 
language  in  repeating  experiences  or  events  or 
personal  observations  are  warpings  from  the  truth 
and  train  the  youthful  narrator  to  a  feeble  esti- 
mate of  what  truth  is, — making  a  Pontius  Pilate 
of  him.  The  true  parent  will  demand  truthful- 
ness at  all  times  with  true  parental  love,  will  ever 
counsel  wisely  and  set  a  decent  example,  will  ever 
forgive  wrong-doing  with  justice  properly  admin- 
istered, will  ever  scorn  to  be  a  scold,  will  ever  be 
good  and  win  the  lad  to  truthfulness  and  justice, 
will  never  be  bossy  and  stern,  and  will  never  allow 
the  boy  to  cavil,  complain,  whine  over  defeat,  or 
"tell  tales  out  of  school,"  souring  his  own  disposi- 
tion and  arousing  a  storm  of  temper  in  the  home. 
In  manhood  this  boy  is  a  failure,  blaming  every- 
thing and  everybody  but  himself  for  the  disap- 


66  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

pointments  that  have  hedged  him  in.  Easily 
ruffled,  he  knows  not  how  to  get  along  smoothly 
with  people  who  do  not  agree  with  him.  He  knows 
not  how  to  pass  level  judgments  upon  others  or 
the  conduct  of  others,  and  he  becomes  a  misfit  in 
life.  He  never  had  been  trained  to  subject  his  will 
to  those  who  had  been  entrusted  with  his  keeping, 
nor  to  regard  the  wisdom  of  their  riper  experi- 
ence and  mature  knowledge.  So  it  is  plain  that 
wrong  manhood  and  false  views  of  life  and  men 
are  due  largely  to  his  rearing  at  home.  The  un- 
reasoning energies  of  the  child  are  to  be  directed 
by  older  heads  and  not  by  the  license  of  the  child's 
whim.  As  a  rule  "spoiled"  boys  grow  up  to  be 
undesirable  citizens.  "Whatsoever  a  man  soweth, 
that  shall  he  also  reap." 


CHAPTER  VIII 
HOME 

Much  that  has  been  said  might  as  well  have  been 
included  in  this  chapter,  having  an  equal  applica- 
tion here. 

In  the  utter  demoralization  of  the  home,  how 
can  anything  good  come  out  of  it?  The  loss  to 
the  state,  to  society,  to  business,  in  the  awful 
waste  and  ruin  of  children  in  bad  homes,  is  more 
than  figures  can  deal  with.  For  the  very  essence 
of  good  citizenship  is  a  good  home,  in  which  the 
training  is  competent  for  every  excellence.  As 
already  said,  when  a  man  goes  wrong,  in  material 
matters  or  in  opinions,  the  leaven  for  it  can  be 
traced  back  to  the  early  home.  Therefore,  too 
much  value  cannot  be  set  on  a  home  that  is  a 
model  institution,  nor  can  a  poor,  immoral  home 
be  reproached  sufficiently.  A  bad  home,  so  made 
by  the  parents,  is  not  only  a  curse,  but  a  viola- 
tion of  God's  decree. 

MATERIAI.  QUALIFICATIONS 

Women  in  industries  are  necessarily  disqualified 
for  domesticity,  and  their  homes  are  failures.  Pub- 
lic life,  a  life  without  the  joys  of  seclusiveness, 
unfits  her  for  training  up  children  properly.  She 
neither  knows  how  to  keep  or  make  a  home ;  neither 
knows  how  to  cook  or  to  train  up  children  for 
their  best  good.  She  comes  to  be  appalled  at  the 
idea  of  domestic  duties,  knows  not  what  they  are, 
67 


68  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

and  if  she  did,  would  not  know  how  to  take  hold 
of  them.  Home  life  would  interfere  with  her  open 
life,  which  she  has  cultivated  a  taste  for,  and  she 
prefers  the  mill,  the  store,  the  office,  to  "being 
cooped  up  at  home."  It  is  no  doubt  sure  that  the 
present  outside  amusements  for  girls  will  develop 
a  healthier  mother,  but  it  is  equally  sure  that  they 
will  develop  a  mother  who  will  not  see  clearly  the 
evils  resulting  from  a  neglect  of  home  nor  feel 
scruples  from  such  neglect.  She  will  gain  selfish, 
divine  health  and  produce  better  children  physi- 
cally by  her  outdoor  life,  but  it  will  be  at  the  ex- 
pense of  her  sense  of  masculine  chivalry. 

INCOMPETENT    SENSE    OF    HOME 

Not  to  be  humorously  flatulent  on  a  serious 
subject,  we  ask  indulgence  for  a  moment  for  speak- 
ing of  a  letter  that  was  recently  received  by  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  written 
by  a  woman,  asking  him  to  find  husbands  for  a 
certain  circle  of  girls.  Such  a  letter  may,  or  may 
not,  have  been  written;  it  may  have  been  a  bit  of 
newspaper  pleasantry;  but  at  all  events  it  illus- 
trates, in  no  indirect  or  unfair  manner,  the  loose 
sense  that  most  young  people  have  these  days 
of  matrimony, — a  lack  of  the  depth  and  breadth 
and  height  and  divine  seriousness  of  sex  union 
and  what  it  means  to  men,  to  state,  to  the  future 
citizen,  to  prosperity,  to  peace.  The  marriage 
vow  becomes  a  mockery,  and  home  a  place  in  which 
to   "stay."      So   many   girls   marry    without  the 


HOME  69 

slightest  understanding  of  what  a  home  means 
with  them  in  it  as  the  center  and  dependence  and 
comforter.  They  are  failures  in  making  homes, 
and  hence  bring  up  poor  citizens.  On  "Mothers' 
Day"  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  hear  the  pulpit 
utter  the  mighty  sentiment  that  "mothers  more 
than  any  other  worldly  power  mould  the  char- 
acter of  a  nation." 

DOMESTIC   SCIENCE 

Talk  of  unsexing  criminals  and  degenerates, 
women  who  fail  to  qualify  for  making  the  home 
beautiful  and  attractive  should  not  be  permitted 
to  marry.  Unclean  homes  are  criminal  dens,  and 
dirt  is  a  denial  of  good  character.  The  National 
Purity  Association  should  extend  its  efforts  be- 
yond mere  assembling  in  general  congresses  and 
passing  torrid  resolutions  demanding  the  teaching 
of  nature's  laws  to  young  people  so  as  to  prevent 
immorality,  favoring  laws  to  punish  vicious  hotel 
employes  and  prevent  false  registering  of  couples 
at  hotels,  asking  press  censorship  of  newspapers, 
novels,  and  immoral  literature,  and  the  restraining 
of  the  publication  of  scandals.  Such  resolutions 
do  not  go  deep  enough — the  prevention  of  the  as- 
sociation of  improper  characters  who  bring  forth 
improper  future  citizens.  Here  is  where  rescue 
work  should  begin, — with  the  grandparent. 

Mothers  fail  to  protest  to  the  child  when  it  im- 
properly wants — ^wants  candies,  harmful  foods, 
slop  soft  drinks,  and  other  such  things  as  affect 


70  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

health  and  its  future  as  a  grown  citizen.  Want 
of  discipline  is  unkindness.  She  prides  in  its 
clothes  more  than  in  its  future  success.  The  simple 
life  is  no  longer  possible,  and  it  is  thought  to 
belong  properly  to  the  poor  who  can  live  no  other. 
Not  more  than  twenty  per  cent,  of  the  children 
are  healthy,  normal,  and  possess  the  inherent  ele- 
ments of  success.  The  children  suffer  for  the  in- 
discretions of  the  parents.  If  only  the  parents, 
it  would  be  less  deplorable.  Is  it  necessary  to  say 
that  parental  training  is  vastly  more  necessary 
than  child  training?  The  latter  would  follow 
naturally  with  proper  parents. 

REMEDY   FOR    PUBMC    EVILS 

Sanctity  in  the  family  ties  is  a  remedy  for  pub- 
lic evils  and  a  cure  for  moral  unhealthiness.  In 
short,  everything  depends  upon  the  family,  the 
birth,  the  training,  the  surroundings.  Civil  and 
corporate  honesty,  and  how  to  prevent  graft 
should  be  taught  a  boy,  as  well  as  temperance, 
bodily  purity,  and  mental  cleanliness.  Official 
infidelity  should  be  made  to  appear  a  woeful  dis- 
grace, instead  of  an  honor  and  an  evidence  of  men- 
tal acumen,  and  its  moral  bluntness  should  be 
viewed  as  the  mark  of  a  degenerate  and  a  villain. 
To  be  sure,  corporate  conscience  is  negative,  mini- 
mizes responsibility,  and  magnifies  apologies  for 
excessive  greed.  It  gets  on  with  a  rudimentary 
moral  sense.  The  public  conscience,  deplorable 
as  it  may  be,  is  low,  and  moral  cowardice  has  its 


HOME  71 

apologists.  No  one  can  give  an  external  remedy 
for  the  evils  of  the  day;  but  the  family  is  the 
great  cause  of  moral  imperfections,  civic  and  in- 
dividual. 

WEDDED    MISERY 

Some  think  that  feminine  novels,  presenting 
false  relationships  of  the  sexes,  produce  wedded 
misery, — causing  many  to  plunge  hastily  and  in- 
considerately into  the  vortex  of  matrimony 
(proves  to  be  such  to  them.)  The  susceptible  and 
overintense  are  led  into  making  unwise  alliances 
by  such  erotic  stories,  and  discover  their  error 
when  it  is  too  late.  Women  fiction  writers  present 
too  often  artificial  ideas  of  love  and  an  ideal  home, 
and  thus  in  fact  encourage  marriage  and  poverty. 
Sensational,  romantic,  unnatural  love-making  is 
not  correct,  nor  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  life. 
Marry  on  five  dollars  a  week  salary, — and  pov- 
erty, hardships,  misery.  Such  stories  induce 
some  by  example  to  marry  and  leave  comfortable 
homes  for  the  lottery  of  future  happiness.  A 
girl  who  cannot  be  kept  as  well  after  marriage 
as  before  has  allied  herself  to  disappointment  and 
a  "come  down."  She  comes  to  regard  marriage 
as  a  failure.  Neurasthenic  passion  is  engendered 
by  warm,  full-blooded  novels,  and  it  is  a  mistake 
for  such  nervous  persons  to  engage  in  the  joint 
business  of  maintaining  a  home.  A  peaceful  do- 
mestic establishment  under  such  conditions  is  im- 
possible, and  children  developed  in  such  an  abom- 


72  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

inable  atmosphere  cannot  attain  to  their  best.     A 
bad  parent  is  worse  than  none. 

EEMOVE   THE   CAUSES 

You  fine  women  and  people  of  fancy  ideas  may 
assemble,  and  pass  resolutions,  and  advise,  and 
make  fine  sentiment,  but  as  long  as  the  same  con- 
ditions continue  the  same  results  will  follow.  Re- 
move the  cause, — ^poor,  scrub  human  stock, — and 
replace  it  with  good  blood,  splendid  energy,  and 
fine  quality  of  brain,  and  the  better  conditions 
will  as  certainly  yield  better  results  as  the  present 
bad  conditions  yield  poor  results. 


CHAPTER  IX 

WHY  BOYS  GO  WRONG 

Indeed  it  is  not  only  the  poor  boy  who  needs 
sympathy  and  help;  the  rich  boy  also.  The  fact 
has  been  lamented  that  many  poor  boys  are  im- 
prisoned for  offenses  that  the  children  of  the  rich 
commit  with  impunity.  The  reason  for  this  is 
attributed  to  parental  influence  for  the  rich  boy. 
To  state  a  trueism  boldly,  all  mankind  have  the 
vicious  instinct,  as  well  as  the  converse,  but  in 
varying  degrees.  Children  reared  where  their  en- 
vironments tend  to  degrade  rather  than  elevate 
have  not  the  same  opportunity  to  become  good  citi- 
zens as  those  reared  in  an  atmosphere  of  refine- 
ment and  culture.  Children  of  the  slums  are  fitted 
for  a  criminal  career  from  infancy.  However, 
bad  blood  is  not  entirely  confined  to  unpromising 
environments,  and  real  worth  often  comes  up  from 
the  ranks.  But  as  a  general  thing  the  poor  un- 
fortunates have  a  constant  battle  to  keep  out  of 
the  clutches  of  the  "red-eyed  law."  Possessing 
the  instinct  of  goodness  as  well  as  its  converse 
they  are  susceptible  to  good  influences,  and  only 
need  the  opportunity  to  make  good  men  of  them- 
selves. 

THERE    IS    HOPE 

No  boy  need   to   give  up   and  lie   down  to  be 
trampled    on    by    his    conditions.      "Waiting   for 
something  to  turn  up"  is  a  policy  that  will  not 
73 


74  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

tunnel  mountains,  or  succeed  in  business,  or 
achieve  anything  worth  while.  The  world  loves 
a  doer  of  things,  a  striver  who  will  attempt,  even 
if  he  fails.  Failure  is  but  a  stepping  stone  to  suc- 
cess, provided  energy  is  not  defective.  The  boy 
must  be  able  to  stand  up  before  the  world  and  defy 
its  critics  and  sneers  and  false  prophets  of  dismal- 
ism.  With  hope  and  courage,  and  the  will  to  make 
the  most  of  himself,  and  to  try  with  might  and 
main  and  thought,  he  cannot  fail  of  advancement, 
however  untoward  the  circumstances  may  seem 
at  the  time.  Opportunity  in  any  one  thing,  in  gen- 
eral, comes  but  once,  and  there  is  a  place  for  a 
boy  with  mind  and  heart  and  energy  and  devotion 
in  his  work. 

ELEMENTS   OF    FAILURE 

Many  things  enter  into  failure,  and  few  are 
hopelessly  doomed  to  it.  The  first  and  chief  cause 
of  failure  is  a  boy's  birth-mark,  so  to  speak;  that 
is,  the  elements  that  constitute  his  being.  The 
second  cause  is  poor,  misguided  parents,  who  know 
not  how  to  develop  the  best  in  their  son.  The 
third  cause  is  a  demoralized  home,  where  the  evil 
propensities  are  given  free  rein.  The  fourth  cause 
is  a  lack  of  education,  and  a  dislike  of  books  and 
the  restraints  of  school  life.  A  teacher  with  a  bad 
temper  may  contribute  to  the  boy's  overthrow. 
The  fifth  cause  can  be  traced  to  his  associates  and 
his  haunts.  The  sixth  cause  lies  in  the  influences 
and  attractions  of  the  streets  and  alleys.     Once 


WHY  BOYS  GO  WRONG  75 

a  street  waif,  and  the  little,  neglected  gamin  has  his 
feet  already  in  the  path  to  the  jail.  The  seventh 
cause  is  a  psychological  one.  When  he  discovers 
that  no  one  has  confidence  in  him  and  that  he  is 
a  Pariah,  his  progress  downward  is  sure  and  rapid. 

HOW    A    BOY    IS    RUINED 

A  boy  with  a  stepmother  is  as  likely  to  be  per- 
mitted to  go  to  ruin  as  the  one  with  a  stepfather. 
A  boy  adopted,  or  "placed  in  a  home,"  often  en- 
counters hardships  that  gradually  steel  him 
against  all  hopes  of  making  anything  of  himself. 

A  boy  with  parents  away  at  work  all  day,  leav- 
ing him  to  take  care  of  himself,  for  the  want  of  the 
knowledge  how  best  to  take  care  of  himself,  drifts 
into  illegitimate  channels  and  learns  the  ways  of 
a  criminal. 

A  boy  in  a  brother's,  or  in  a  sister's  home,  is 
in  great  danger  of  making  his  life  a  sad  mistake. 

A  boy  adrift,  without  the  rudder  or  compass 
of  anyone  to  counsel  him,  is  sure  to  miss  the  haven 
of  superior  manhood. 

A  boy  with  drunken,  quarreling  parents  is  in 
a  school  for  criminals. 

A  boy  that  grandma  raises  is  petted  to  death. 

A  boy  with  a  brutal  father  or  a  degenerate 
mother  is  not  born  to  success  in  life. 

A  boy  in  a  filthy,  unregenerate  home,  where  the 
civilizing  grace  of  soap  is  not  comprehended,  is 
in  the  downward  path  of  degeneracy. 

A  boy  with  stupid,  lazy  parents,  who,  little  un- 


76  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

derstanding  the  worth  of  life,  permit  the  boy  to  be- 
come like  them,  without  ideals,  without  encourage- 
ment, without  a  desire  to  achieve. 

A  boy  with  sickly  parents  is  denied  opportuni- 
ties that  might  make  him  a  worthy  citizen  and 
give  him  the  conscious  sense  of  pride  in  his  at- 
tainments. 

A  boy  who  has  learned  how  to  deceive  his  par- 
ents usually  develops  into  a  man  with  a  disgrace- 
ful court  record. 

A  boy  out  of  home  after  nine  o'clock  at  night, 
God  only  knows  where,  is  in  the  highway  of  de- 
struction. 

A  boy  who  trains  in  by-places  with  bigger  boys 
for  the  evil  he  hears  and  sees,  has  no  love  for  the 
good  and  is  sure  to  develop  into  a  by-product  of 
citizenship  and  come  in  time  to  be  enrolled  by  a 
number  in  a  penal  institution. 

A  boy  with  long  fingers,  who  chums  with  van- 
dal, over-smart  chums,  has  already  stepped  over 
the  threshold  of  the  jail. 

A  boy  who  loses  respect  for  his  parents  and 
for  authority  will  soon  develop  what  criminal  ten- 
dencies he  has. 

A  boy  who  indulges  his  vicious  and  low  instincts 
is  sowing  the  seeds  of  degeneracy. 

A  boy  whose  temper  is  his  master  is  laying  up 
for  himself  contempt  and  a  disorderly  and  abnor- 
mal life.  His  life  will  be  a  prolonged  battle.  What 
he  gives,  he  gets  in  return. 

A  boy  who  boasts  of  his  truant  ways  and  his 


WHY  BOYS  GO  WRONG  77 

disregard  of  established  customs  will  eventually 
achieve  the  heroic  part  of  "breaking  into  jail." 

A  boy  who  prides  in  being  wise  in  wicked  ways 
and  smart  in  sin  has  laid  out  for  himself  the  des- 
tiny of  a  painful,  sinful  life. 

A  boy  who  is  permitted  to  "talk  back"  to  his 
parents,  and  is  sustained  in  his  stories  of  his  diffi- 
culties with  others,  is  laying  up  "treasures  for 
himself  in  hades." 

And  a  thousand  and  one  other  ways  in  which 
a  boy  may  go  to  the  bad. 

SUPERVISION  IS  THE  BOY's  SALVATION 

Most  of  these  cases  require  correction  in  a  spe- 
cial manner,  each  differing  from  the  other,  yet 
there  are  some  general  principles  applicable  alike 
to  all.  As  Henry  Ward  Beecher  once  said,  no 
one  knows  what  he  is  himself  till  temptation 
comes  in  his  way.  So  no  boy  is  too  good  to  be 
supervised  and  guided,  and  no  boy  is  too  bad  not 
to  be  trusted  in  some  measure.  There  is  no  dis- 
loyalty in  watching  the  welfare  of  a  boy  and  ex- 
tending proper  sympathy  to  him.  The  contrary 
idea  is  wrong,  and  treatment  resulting  from  it  is 
wrong  to  the  boy.  It  is  the  parent's  God-ordained 
duty  to  watch  upon  and  supervise  the  conduct  of 
his  boy,  alike  ignorant  of  moral  conduct  and  of 
results  of  his  actions.  For  boys  have  not  the 
judgment  of  men. 

A  good  home  and  respectable  parentage  should 
be  every  lad's  birthright,  and  the  parent  who  ab- 
dicates his  duty  to  his  boy  to  God,  with  a  self- 


78  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

righteous  prayer  on  the  abandonment  of  his  son 
to  himself  and  to  evil  influences,  is  a  moral  crimi- 
nal, shirking  and  sneaking  out  of  responsibility 
because  it  is  irksome  and  interferes  with  a  selfish 
manner  of  life.  It  is  simply  giving  the  boy  his 
freedom — ^free-doom.  The  boy  perhaps  knows 
no  better  than  to  go  to  ruin,  because  its  paths 
are  alluring;  no  one  tells  him  better  or  helps  him 
over  the  rough,  dangerous  places. 

RUINED   BY   NEGLECT 

Ignorant  of  his  haunts  and  of  his  alley  educat- 
ing influences  the  parent  cannot  understand  the 
downfall  of  his  son.  By  slight  and  easy  progress 
the  boy  is  graduated  from  the  kindergarten  school 
of  evil  and  enters  the  high  school  of  the  dark  and 
filthy  side  of  life,  whence  he  at  length  emerges 
with  a  diploma  signed  by  His  Sooty  Majesty  & 
Co.  Ruined  through  parental  neglect,  by  want 
of  parental  oversight,  by  the  absence  of  parental 
direction  —  ruined !  Large  sinners  are  made 
through  small  gradations,  not  per  saltus.  Every 
boy  must  understand  that  he  must  render  an  ac- 
counting for  every  moment  of  his  time  spent  away 
from  home.  Any  neglect  of  this  requirement  is 
an  injury  to  the  boy.  He  need  not  be  made  to  feel 
that  the  accounting  for  his  time  is  required  be- 
cause of  distrust  in  him,  or  because  it  affords 
opportunity  for  a  mean  parental  purpose  of  fault- 
finding and  criticism,  but  for  his  special  help. 
And  also  it  is  very  essential  to  know  the  truthful- 


WHY  BOYS  GO  WRONG  79 

ness  of  his  account,  as  well  as  who  his  associates 
are.  A  boy  out  of  school  is  going  wrong,  and 
he  knows  it. 

DEFECTIVE  ACCOUNTING 

It  is  a  well  settled  principle  in  the  practice  of 
criminal  law  that  there  is  always  a  weak  point, 
a  defect,  in  every  story  of  testimony  presented, 
no  matter  how  cunningly  contrived  and  skillfully 
presented ;  and  hence  parents,  to  be  honest  to  their 
boy  and  mean  his  best  good,  will  deftly  question 
him  and  others  until  the  whole  truth  is  secured. 
Honor  the  boy  for  the  truth  he  tells;  unjustly 
discredit  him  and  he  feels  that  to  be  truthful  is 
injurious  to  him.  The  boy  who  is  controlled  by 
vagrant  impulse,  lacking  judgment  and  balance, 
but  swayed  by  imagination  that  leads  his  reason 
a-woolgathering,  is  an  easy  subject  for  ruin  by 
a  human  flint.  He  must  not  be  accused  of  wrong 
until  he  is  actually  guilty.  On  the  other  hand, 
when  the  boy  discovers  that  the  judge  in  the 
home  court  is  but  human  putty,  he  readily  accom- 
modates his  story  of  himself  to  the  nature  of  the 
court. 

A    LIFE    WORK 

Like  the  "Man  Without  a  Country"  a  man  with- 
out a  business  or  trade  or  profession,  a  definite 
pursuit  of  some  kind,  is  a  failure, — doomed  to 
failure  from  the  first.  Dr.  C.  W.  Eliot  believed 
in  boys  and  girls  being  "started  out"  by  proper 
agents   of  authority  and  then  forced  by  law  to 


80  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

study  the  trades  assigned  them  which  seemed  they 
were  best  adapted  to.  This  plan  may  seem  un- 
democratic, but  under  the  law  of  self-preservation 
a  nation,  like  an  individual,  may  take  steps  to  con- 
tinue its  life.  The  motto,  "Be  educated  for  life, 
not  for  school,"  is  too  little  regarded.  What  in- 
dustrial conditions  at  this  time  require  is  more 
skilled  workmen,  not  more  able  foremen  and  super- 
intendents. 

It  is  confessed,  however,  that  to  be  engaged  in 
work  of  whatever  kind  that  is  uncongenial,  dis- 
tasteful, and  which  one  has  no  natural  aptitude 
or  congeniality  for,  spells  failure.  To  change 
work  and  localities  too  often  seeking  for  one's 
natural  pursuit  or  "sphere"  means  non-success. 
In  every  walk  in  life  around  us  there  are  those 
who  are  dissatisfied,  discouraged,  and  in  the  wrong 
place, — ^too  many  poor  preachers,  too  many  half- 
trained  lawyers,  too  many  quacks  posing  as  phy- 
sicians not  in  the  undertaking  business,  too  many 
hungry  artists  who  would  adorn  some  trade  much 
better,  too  many  half-paid  teachers  whose  voca- 
tion is  the  home  and  the  kitchen,  too  many  poor, 
failing  toilers  everywhere,  engaged  in  work  for 
which  they  have  no  capacity  or  skill.  To  win  in 
the  great  game  of  life,  the  work  should  not  lie  out- 
side the  common  activities,  but  in  congenial  places 
within  them.  Impossible  ideals  precipitate  dis- 
couragement rather  than  bring  stimulation.  One's 
ability  to  win  doesn't  lie  in  a  comparison  with 
others,  even  if  Macbeth  did  say,  "What  man  dare, 
I  dare." 


WHY  BOYS  GO  WRONG  81 

KEEP    BUSY 

The  busy  one  is  the  only  happy  one,  and  our 
drudgeries  are  our  blessings  in  disguise.  The  boy 
must  be  engaged  in  some  work  of  a  useful  char- 
acter, as  well  as  entertained  by  play.  He  never 
should  feel  that  he  has  time  in  which  he  doesn't 
know  what  to  do  with  himself  or  what  to  do.  Every 
day's  close  should  find  him  soundly  and  whole- 
somely tired. 

The  man  in  a  workday  rut,  with  no  incentive 
to  gain  higher  work,  always  in  the  routine  as  a 
part  of  the  machine,  fails  to  climb.  He  gains.* 
no  preferment  because  he  does  not  strive  to  win 
it.  Such  a  toiler  watches  the  clock  too  closely  and 
the  business  too  little.  Failure  is  his  fate,  written 
in  the  stars,  because  he  is  not  in  the  right  place. 
No  mind  or  heart  in  the  work,  his  sin  finds  him 
out.  He  is  a  failure  as  a  fine  specimen  of  enter- 
prising citizenship. 

HABITS  A   CAUSE 

An  intemperate  tongue  is  an  evidence  of  pos- 
sible trouble  as  well  as  a  mark  of  the  want  of  wis- 
dom. And  one  whose  tongue  is  a  disturbance  of 
others  as  himself,  and  whose  life  is  a  continuous 
warfare,  is  no  less  desirable  as  a  citizen  as  he  is  a 
neighbor. 

In  the  weakness  of  his  make-up  by  nature  his 
habits  of  whatever  kind  become  deep-seated  and 
dominating.  If  he  has  the  idling  habit,  he  is  a 
failure.     If  he  has  the  habit  of  violent  language 


82  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

and  over-exaggeration,  he  is  a  disturbing  element 
and  an  "undesirable."  If  he  is  a  saloon  habitat, 
he  might  as  well  cut  his  throat  and  be  done  with 
it,  so  far  as  profit  to  his  family  grows  out  of  such 
a  way  of  living.  If  he  has  the  habit  of  selfishness, 
and  looks  only  as  far  as  his  own  good  goes,  his 
social  qualities  are  minus,  less  than  zero.  If  he 
has  the  habit  of  boastfulness  and  egoism,  he  dis- 
gusts others  and  classifies  and  excludes  himself 
from  them.  In  so  far,  then,  he  becomes  an  ex- 
traneous object,  and  there  can  be  no  service  to 
others  where  there  is  but  one  person. 

POOR  HEALTH 

It  is  an  overt  fact  that  children  admitted  to  re- 
forffl^schools  show  very  greatly  the  lack  of  proper 
food,  for  the  want  of  which  the  tendency  to  degen- 
eration is  accelerated.  They  need  as  well  better 
homes,  less  exposure,  better  clothes.  Sickly  par- 
ents engender  sickly  tendencies,  if  not  sickness 
itself,  and  decay  of  mental  and  physical  welfare. 
If  one's  size  and  color  and  complexion  and  physi- 
cal constitution  are  predetermined  by  heredity, 
his  mental  status  is  also  determined  by  his  blood, 
and  that  means  his  defects  as  well  as  his  gifts. 

"For  of  the  soul  the  body  form  doth  take; 
For  soul  is  form  and  doth  the  body  make." 

The  boy's  shuffling,  shiftless  gait  is  not  without 
a  cause, — ^perhaps  his  blood,  or  maybe  the  hook- 
worm. Then  bad  eyes  or  defective  ears  play  an 
important  part  in  human  frailties  and  failures. 


WHY  BOYS  GO  WRONG  83 

Children  who  buy  candy  on  the  way  to  and  from 
school,  and  munch  candy  throughout  the  day, 
physicians  say  are  notable  for  their  dullness  in 
their  lessons.  Inside  the  mouths  of  these  habitual 
candy-eating  pupils  they  found  by  examination 
a  peculiar  color,  different  from  the  natural,  and 
similar  in  all  instances. 

The  policy  that  it  is  a  duty  to  prolong  human 
life  as  much  as  possible  at  whatever  cost,  however 
maimed  or  defective,  has  long  been  accepted  as  a 
true  principle  of  human  philosophy,  on  the  ground 
that  the  sacredness  of  human  life  demands  it,  the 
soul  having  a  right  to  earthly  existence  regard- 
less of  results  to  the  decrepit  or  to  others.  How- 
ever, some  are  bold  enough  to  assert  that  "every 
reasonable  consideration  urges  that  an  end  should 
be  put  to  their  lives,"  just  as  some  savage  races 
were  accustomed  to  do.  Laudanum  is  advised  for 
the  child  whose  life  would  be  a  burden  and  a  con- 
tinuous suffering, — one  whose  life  would  be  pain- 
ful because  of  some  physician's  unskillful  hand- 
ling, recovery  being  utterly  impossible,  no  matter 
if  it  should  afford  surgery  an  example  to  parade 
its  resources  and  mastery  subsequently  on  the  tor- 
tured little  sufferer.  These  advocates  have  gone 
further  and  said  that  painful  and  incurable  can- 
cerous subjects,  where  they  want  to  die,  should 
be  Oslerized.  And  an  old  person  whose  mind  has 
become  chaotic  and  who  is  a  charge,  they  say  the 
plain  duty  is  to  shorten,  not  prolong  life. 

Some  stunning  sociologic  reformers  declare  that 


84  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

all  slum  babies  should  be  chloroformed, — all  poor, 
starving  offspring  of  worthless  criminal  classes 
that  infest  the  slums, — rather  than  let  them  grow 
up  criminals  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  state  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  people.  They  do  not  include  the  poor 
willing  workers,  worthy  but  unfortunate, — only 
those  to  whom  living  would  be  but  a  prolonged 
agony  of  a  limited  number  of  days  at  most. 

It  is  becoming  apparent  that  it  is  the  province 
of  the  schools  to  examine  children  as  to  their  health 
and  sanity,  advise  steps  to  be  taken  to  prevent  the 
transmission  of  disastrous  defects,  and  look  after 
the  physical  welfare  as  well  as  the  mental,  moral, 
and  social  good  of  the  rising  generation.  It  is 
well  to  train  the  young  idea  how  to  shoot,  but  it 
is  better  to  train  the  unborn  to  a  better  idea  be- 
fore the  stage  of  shooting  begins. 

BAD    LITERATURE 

One  with  the  habit  of  reading  good  things  is 
in  safe  conditions.  He  has  no  time  to  waste  on 
the  streets,  has  no  book-made  false  ideals,  and 
becomes  in  mature  life  a  useful  citizen.  If  parents 
would  even  read  a  newspaper  aloud  at  home,  and 
all  join  properly  in  a  discussion  of  its  contents, 
fewer  boys  would  break  mothers'  hearts  and  weary 
fathers  on  sleepless  beds.  With  the  home  as  a 
haven  of  refuge  and  a  solidarity  of  good  feeling, 
lawyers  and  courts  would  have  less  business.  Good 
home  influences  deny  opportunities  to  go  wrong. 
It  is  the   opportunities  that  destroy.     Boys  and 


WHY  BOYS  GO  WRONG  85 

girls  with  the  example  of  reading  in  the  home  suc- 
ceed better  in  school,  and  all  through  life  never 
put  aside  the  reading  habit,  and  as  a  consequence 
have  a  well-stored  mind  in  the  active  part  of  life. 
"They  know  nothing  because  they  read  nothing," 
said  Roger  Sherman.  Peptonized  and  predi- 
gested  literature  is  thin  mental  diet,  and  is  not 
good  for  even  the  mental  invalid. 

Reading  should  be  first  disciplinary,  next 
purely  joyous  or  entertaining.  Disciplinary  litera- 
ture should  be  the  classical,  imaginative  master- 
pieces, such  as  Shakespere,  the  leading  poets,  and 
certain  essayists.  The  joyous  may  be  of  the  lighter 
kind,  such  as  the  evanescent,  light  stuff  of  the  day. 
The  verdict  of  the  ages  is  that  the  classical  writers, 
from  Homer  down  to  the  present,  are  immortal, 
not  primarily  because  they  are  deep,  correct,  re- 
strained and  shapely,  but  principally  because 
they  give  joy  to  the  largest  number  of  readers. 

And  at  present  children's  libraries  are  in  all  the 
public  schools,  and  in  them  are  found  the  best 
books.  They  are  taken  home,  and  parents  also 
find  an  elevating  influence  in  them.  They  incul- 
cate the  love  of  reading,  draw  the  young  into  their 
favorite  lines  of  thought,  and  thus  enter  into  their 
life  pursuits.  The  boy  stories  and  the  girl  stories 
of  the  hour  are  better  liked  as  a  rule  than  other 
classes  of  books. 

If  good  literature  has  this  desirable  effect,  what 
must  the  flash  literature  do  for  a  susceptible 
young  heart?     The  force  of  bad  literature  is  seen 


86  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

in  instances  related  in  the  press  almost  every  day. 
The  child's  taste  for  reading  is  acquired  from  the 
age  of  nine  to  fourteen,  and  not  much  taste  for 
it  is  gained  later  in  life.  It  is  too  late  to  form 
this  luxurious  taste,  when  the  mind  has  once  ac- 
quired tastes  and  habits  for  other  things,  which 
it  rarely  lets  go  of  all  through  life.  Therefore 
the  duty  of  a  parent  is  to  put  good  papers,  maga- 
zines and  books  in  the  reach  of  the  boy  early  in 
life.  Readers  are  thinkers,  and  they  influence  and 
direct  the  world.  No  one  but  can  find  some  time 
for  good  books  and  papers.  The  busiest  and 
most  successful  men  find  time  to  read  and  keep 
up  with  the  times. 


CHAPTER  X 

BIOLOGY  OF  CRIME 

Criminology  is  a  psychological  study,  and  all 
criminal  laws  not  in  accord  with  the  best  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature  fall  short  of  their  purpose 
and  are  practically  dead  letters.  In  an  investi- 
gation of  the  history  of  criminals  some  tangible 
basis  for  conclusions  as  to  the  motives  of  the  crimi- 
nal and  the  impulses  prompting  criminal  deeds 
in  spite  of  the  moral  sense  that  lies  in  varying 
degree  in  every  God-man's  nature,  is  secured,  thus 
affording  more  accurate  data  for  regulating  the 
law  breaker.  Something  tangible  is  secured  from 
the  study  of  the  morally  wobbling  through  his 
antecedents,  his  early  influences  and  environments, 
his  associates  and  habits  and  opportunities,  the 
subtile  influences  that  led  him  to  his  first  wayward 
steps,  his  physical,  mental  and  moral  states.  In 
brief,  the  study  of  the  biology  of  crime  is  a  study 
of  the  unfit. 

WILL  TRAINING 

A  father  once  wrote  in  his  daughter's  album, 
"Your  obedient  father,  John  Smith  Brown."  This 
is  true  in  no  good  sense.  The  will  of  the  daugh- 
ter was  the  authority.  In  most  homes  there  is  no 
intelligent  will  training  of  the  child.  If  there 
were,  it  would  very  greatly  diminish  moral  ills  and 
remove  those  self-inflicted  evils  that  come  through 
disobedience  and  self-gratification.  The  public 
87 


88  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

school  course  in  moral  hygiene  as  well  as  the  do- 
mestic moral  course  is  imperfect  and,  therefore, 
a  failure.  The  system  of  will  training  should 
point  out  the  errors  resulting  from  pandering  to 
the  child's  undirected,  immature,  unwise  craving 
for  the  mysterious,  and  to  the  mistakes  due  to  cor- 
recting him  by  appeals  to  his  fears,  or  his  pride, 
and  to  the  results  from  keeping  him  "in  line"  by 
bribes  and  lies  and  promises  never  meant  to  be  ful- 
filled, and  to  intimidation.  His  fickle  will  is  the 
chief  thing  to  curb,  since  it  sways  his  emotional 
nature.  The  object  of  the  training  is  to  prevent 
crime  rather  than  to  punish  it.  With  a  will  that 
leads  to  crime,  punishment  is  no  preventative.  If 
the  tendency  to  do  wrong  is  corrected,  there  will 
be  no  misdemeanors  to  punish.  Most  inadverten- 
cies are  the  outcroppings  of  the  emotional  side 
of  man,  his  impulsive,  unthinking  force,  and  these 
afflictions  might  be  greatly  controlled  by  a  trained 
will.  For  a  defective  will  is  the  curse  of  the  emo- 
tional criminal. 

CRIME  PREDILECTIONS 

Predictions  based  on  past  facts  say  that  not 
less  than  five  thousand  persons  will  be  murdered 
in  the  succeeding  twelve  months.  The  results  of 
"crime  waves,"  as  the  general  press  phrases  it, 
do  not  enter  into  this  estimate.  "Crime  waves" 
are  the  gravest  psychologic,  social,  and  legal 
problem  that  society  has  to  deal  with.  They  do 
not  come  because  of  atmospheric  conditions,  ma- 


BIOLOGY  OF  CRIME  89 

terial  states,  or  moral  deficiencies,  but  rather 
through  imitation  of  reported  crimes.  The  mat- 
ter of  criminal  justice  in  the  United  States  is 
frightfully  neglected  or  defiantly  scorned.  Dr. 
Andrew  D.  White  says  our  courts  are  entirely 
too  lenient  in  the  punishment  of  criminals.  The 
maudlin  feminine  sentiment  and  sympathy  poured 
over  the  criminal  by  women  imbued  with  the  idea 
that  their  "mission"  is  to  do  good,  not  only 
heroizes  the  dangerous  character,  but  holds  out 
a  hope  to  him  that  he  will  not  be  rigorously  dealt 
with.  This  lionizing  of  the  human  reptile,  in 
whom  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  the  true  hero,  is  a 
cause  not  without  an  effect.  Flowers  sent  to  his 
cell  do  not  wipe  away  his  stain  or  alter  a  fiber  of 
his  will.  The  information  is  given  out  by  statis- 
tics that  homicides  in  this  country  are  far  more 
numerous  than  in  any  other  civilized  coimtry  in 
the  world.  They  are  forty-three  times  the  num- 
ber in  Canada,  and  eight  times  that  of  Belgium, 
which  has  the  highest  homicidal  rate  in  Europe. 
And  Belgium  has  no  death  penalty,  while  in 
Canada  where  the  rate  of  homicides  is  lowest, 
seven-eights  of  the  men  tried  for  murder  are  exe- 
cuted by  law.  In  our  country  but  one  murderer 
in  seventy-four  gets  the  death  penalty,  and  the 
average  life  sentence  is  reduced  to  seven  years. 
Courts  are  guilty.  Law  is  emasculated  and  made 
of  none  effect. 

ERADICATING    CRIMINAL    TENDENCIES 

The   eradication   of  criminal  tendencies   in  the 


90  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

young  through  the  application  of  external  agen- 
cies is  but  treating  symptoms,  not  causes.  The 
reduction  of  the  output  of  defective  children  is 
the  only  real  remedy.  Cures  attempted  through 
surgery  cannot  reach  the  cell  in  the  blood  out  of 
which  posterity  is  brought  forth.  One  disciple  of 
Aesculapius  astonished  an  admiring  clientele  by 
proposing  to  correct  by  surgery  upon  defective 
teeth  criminal  instincts,  nervous  disorders,  and 
insanity.  Nothing  has  been  heard  of  his  alienist 
work  since  his  proposal.  Medicines  and  healthy 
surroundings  are  believed  by  some  to  improve 
the  race.  They  are  but  crutches  to  the  cripple. 
Now,  the  "hindrances  to  good  citizenship," — and 
the  consequent  "salvation  of  popular  government," 
— can't  be  removed  by  half-hearted,  half-radical 
measures.  To  know  the  public  good  and  bring 
about  the  "good  of  each"  is  not  a  matter  for  ex- 
perimentation. To  hiss  and  lampoon  and  "mis- 
brand"  honest  intentions  to  eradicate  crime  and 
improve  the  general  good  are  the  negative  out- 
croppings  of  the  defectives  pointed  out  by  Nor- 
deau  and  Lombroso.  Our  legislation  is  incom- 
petent to  eifect  the  greatest  possible  good,  and 
there  is  a  reason  for  it,  as  there  is  for  all  things. 
"Our  whole  political  system  is  over-lawyerized," 
declared  Dr.  Felix  Adler  lately,  and  he  meant 
that  our  laws  are  lawyers'  statutes,  and  not  the 
people's. 

LET    NO    GUILTY    ONE    ESCAPE 

Society  would  be  better  protected  with  a  bet- 


BIOLOGY  OF  CRIME  91 

ter  execution  of  the  laws  that  are  written.  So 
many  disorderly  ruffians  are  not  arrested  and 
punished  as  they  deserve,  and  the  injured  citizens 
suffer  the  misdeeds  and  public  nuisances  of  the 
law-breakers  rather  than  enforce  the  law  and  incur 
their  hatred  and  probable  future  revenge.  If  the 
public  would  organize  for  mutual  protection  and 
see  that  no  guilty  man  escapes,  the  criminal 
would  have  a  more  wholesome  fear  of  the  public, 
would  feel  less  security  in  immunity,  would  have 
less  reason  for  bluffing  out  and  eluding  a  minion 
of  the  law.  There  is  too  little  dread  of  punish- 
ment before  the  criminal,  and  in  this  sense  of  se- 
curity he  obeys  his  instincts  and  leadings,  quite 
certain  that  justice  will  miscarry  in  his  case.  A 
full  enforcement  of  the  law,  without  evasions, 
would  largely  correct  the  abuse  of  the  public  by 
the  criminally  disposed.  It  is  a  public  duty  to 
take  a  personal  interest  in  the  maintenance  of  law 
and  the  preservation  of  order  and  the  suppres- 
sion of  irresponsible  personalities.  The  youthful 
candidate  for  the  jail  would  in  equal  measure  be 
restrained  from  his  wayward  tendencies,  and  a 
general  good  would   result. 

WHO    COMMITS    CRIMES 

The  imperative  duty  of  every  parent  is  to  edu- 
cate his  child.  The  undisputed  evidence  is  that 
ignorance  is  a  crime, — not  legal  as  yet,  but  social 
and  ethical  and  financial.  The  compulsory  edu- 
cational  law    answers    the    question — "Am    I    my 


92  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

brother's    keeper?"      Intelligence     alone     can    ac- 
quire and  perpetuate  liberty,  civic  and  religious. 
As  long  as  heredity  is  the    law    of    descent,  the 
world  can  never  be  educated  so  that  men  will  do 
to  others  as  they  would  be  done  by.     Could  educa- 
tion  do   this,   it   would     eliminate    criminals   and 
prisons.  Statistics  relating  to  illiteracy  show  that 
the   uneducated  are  the  greatest  sinners  in  legal 
violations.      While   intelligence    reduces    crime,    it 
cannot  reform  the  blood.     Ignorant  parents,  hav- 
ing no  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  nation  nor 
foresight  for  the  good  of  the  state,  cannot  com- 
prehend the  import  of  a  boy's  tendencies  to  mis- 
conduct, nor  understand  how  to  correct  them,  nor 
the  real  need    of    such    correction.      When  he  is 
asked,    under    the     compulsory     educational    law, 
why  he  doesn't  send  his  boy  to  school,  in  indigna- 
tion he  cries   out  tragically,  "Liberty!"     What, 
liberty  to  do  wrong!     This  is  but  the  plea  of  ig- 
norance to  do  as  it  pleases,  and  is  a  sort  of  rebel- 
lion against  the  necessity  of  protecting  the  inno- 
cent and  obedient.     It  also   confesses  that  he  is 
ignorant  of  what  is  best  for  his  child.     For  one 
to  desire  the  "liberty  to  do  as  he  feels"  is  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  his  son's  and  his  own  general  good. 
The  same  argument  would  license  violation  of  law, 
crime,  rebellion    and  demand    the   abrogation   of 
punishment  for  it.     The  primary  object  of  pun- 
ishment is  to  secure  obedience  to  law,  and  in  the 
application  of  it  the  state  looks  more  to  the  body 
politic  than  to  the  recipient  of  the  legal  discipline. 


BIOLOGY  OF  CRIME  98 

The  purpose  of  penology  is  to  diminish  crime  and 
afford  protection  to  the  innocent  from  the  vicious. 
Any  system  that  shields  the  inveterate  enemies 
of  society  increases  the  ratio  of  crime.  One  who 
has  attained  the  notoriety  of  a  court  record,  at 
least  on  his  third  or  fourth  appearance  in  court 
should  receive  the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law. 
Clemency  then  is  a  dangerous  error.  Pardon 
granted  through  sympathy  is  no  less  an  injury 
to  society. 

THE     FLATTERY     OF     DISTINCTION 

It  is  pleasing  to  be  chief.  It  is  selfish.  Na- 
tions pride  in  greatness  and  supremacy.  They 
fear  entangling  international  alliances,  lest  ad- 
vantage be  gained  by  the  ally.  As  long  as  na- 
tions make  child's  bargains  for  power,  instead  of 
the  good  of  all,  so  long  will  nations  perish.  Jeal- 
ous of  each  other's  good,  they  exercise  the  mean 
part  of  spy,  and  will  meet  the  general  fate  of  na- 
tions of  the  past.  The  desire  for  the  supreme 
good  is  the  vital  and  long-lived  element  and  the 
only  true  principle  of  greatness  and  endurance. 
The  element  of  Grecian  civilization  was  symmetry 
and  a  foolish  exposition  of  culture,  misnamed 
philosophy.  Persia  exhibited  display  and  power. 
Judea  cherished  hatred  and  non-concession. 
Egypt  went  down  under  the  destiny  of  the  fate 
of  slavery  and  mastery.  Rome  had  a  worship 
without  a  god  of  sublime  excellence,  was  the  slave 
of  money,  and  decayed  in  the  feminine  weakness 


94  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

following  high  living.  Therefore  nations  must 
do  to  others  as  they  would  have  them  do  in  return, 
and  they  will  perish  unless  they  practice  the  prin- 
ciple of  "put  yourself  in  his  place." 

BOY  REFORMATION 

Under  the  law  of  recovery  or  recuperation, 
which  in  a  measure  is  the  counterpart  of  heredity, 
and  a  proof  of  human  will  and  human  responsi- 
bility, the  erring  boys  may  be  reclaimed.  While 
it  may  be  said  in  a  sense  that  man  is  born  with 
the  fate  of  a  will  and  the  necessity  for  choosing, 
he  is  nevertheless  free  to  choose,  to  make  his  life 
a  good  or  an  evil,  or  else  the  idea  and  the  sense 
of  a  will  is  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  So  therefore 
a  moral  wound  is  possible  of  restoration.  Every 
child  at  heart  is  good;  so  is  he  evil,  the  comple- 
ment of  good,  for  the  one  cannot  exist  without 
the  other.  Most  of  the  boy's  acts  that  injure  a 
community  are  thoughtless,  impulsive  mistakes. 

GIVING  THE   BOY  A   CHANCE 

Painting  a  boy  blacker  than  he  is  is  neither 
logical  nor  beneficial.  For  once  having  the  name 
he  also  desires  the  game.  Under  the  law  of  sug- 
gestion, through  a  bad  name  he  seeks  that  which 
harmonizes  with  his  reputation.  The  education 
of  the  backward  child  is  best  obtained  through 
praise  than  unencouraging  censure.  Exposure 
of  his  mental  defects  is  humiliating  and  retarding. 
His  education  should  be  positive,  not  negative; 
taught  what  he  should  do,   not  what  he  should 


BIOLOGY  OF  CRIME  96 

not  do;  how  good  he  can  become,  not  how  bad 
he  is,  and  how  much  worse  he  will  be.  A  boy  has 
no  standard  of  right  and  wrong,  until  he  is  so 
taught.  It  is  altogether  needless  to  tell  him  he 
is  hopelessly  bad,  because  it  is  not  true. 

BOY    WITH    A    BACKBONE 

A  boy,  when  he  finds  he  has  a  backbone,  breaks 
precedents  and  conventionalisms,  chafes  at  bonds, 
and  under  the  spell  of  disobedience  that  afflicts 
him,  otherwise  manifests  his  high  spirit.  This 
disease  of  disobedience,  like  the  measles,  runs  its 
course,  and  the  lad  becomes  normal  again.  It  is 
the  extravagance  of  his  emotions  that  obsesses 
him.  It  is  then  he  is  ruined,  or  in  spite  of  the 
mistakes  of  "courses  of  medicine  and  instruction" 
he  recovers.  The  critical  period  of  his  life  is 
when  he  discovers  he  has  a  backbone.  Unless  the 
boy  is  critically  understood  in  this  crisis  of  his 
life,  the  turning  point  for  failure  or  success,  the 
cross-roads  to  good  name  or  to  dishonor,  the 
method  of  treatment  is  likely  to  be  brushwood  to 
the  flame.  And  for  the  want  of  names  for  crimes 
not  defined  by  law,  impatient  people  set  up  the 
"calamity  howl"  and  easily  charge  neglect  some- 
where. 

WHAT    LIFE    MEANS 

Not  a  mere  moving  bit  of  thought  and  feeling; 
not  a  mere  personal  entity  with  only  a  selfish 
purpose;  not  a  thing  of  "liberty"  that  lies  down 
to  death  after  a  brief  day;  not  a  machine  merely 


96  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

to  make  money  that  goes  no  further  than  physical 
things  that  can't  buy  a  day  to  the  length  of  life, 
nor  grant  immunity  from  pain,  nor  purchase  a 
hope  or  an  aim;  not  a  dreamless  existence  that 
finds  the  earth  a  mere  dwelling-place;  not  a  soul 
to  dwell  idly,  aimlessly,  worthlessly  as  we  read  m 
Turgeniff's  '"Diary  of  a  Superfluous  Man;"  not 
merely  to  live  the  life  of  a  good,  law-abiding  citi- 
zen, and  be  a  kind  father,  and  achieve  a  bit  of 
printed-page  learning;  not  merely  always  to  work 
and  save  and  acquire  and  "progress" — drudgery 
and  hoarding,  not  that  alone;  not  in  mere  "suc- 
cess" and  "achievement,"  and  "going  to  the 
front"  and  ascending  to  the  icy  top;  not  in  the 
strange  malady  of  "commercialism;"  but  in  the 
pursuit  of  the  ideal,  the  dreams  within,  the  faith 
and  hope  of  existence.  What  is  aside  from  this 
is  not  life,  but  crude  animal  existence.  It  is  not 
in  a  dream  of  Utopia,  not  in  any  theory  of  Nir- 
vana, not  in  magnificent  externalities,  but  in  doing 
a  heart  work  and  looking  upward  higher  than  the 
head  with  all  one's  powers  of  concentration  and 
skill  and  talent.  This  is  freedom,  and  without  it 
life  is  meaningless,  doomed  to  the  furies  of  Re- 
gret and  the  perils  of  the  Great  Misgiving  and  the 
pains  of  Failure.  The  one  difference  between  the 
true  and  false  life  is  that  which  exists  between  the 
care  of  the  body  only  and  of  the  soul — the  higher 
life,  the  real  purple  of  existence.  Business  and 
intellectual  and  social  and  spiritual  needs  should 
blend  every  day — none  omitted.     Real  liberty  is 


BIOLOGY  OF  CRIME  97 

real  life,  and  consists  in  the  ability  to  think  and 
feel  and  act  for  self.  It  is  to  think  clean,  high 
thoughts,  to  do  right  thinking  and  right  living, 
minus  the  shams,  to  seek  ideal  truths  and  central 
facts,  to  work  against  evil  tendencies  in  and  out 
of  self,  to  escape  the  burdens  of  extreme  poverty 
on  the  one  hand  and  of  great,  oppressive  wealth 
on  the  other.  It  is  to  live  the  "simple  life,"  for 
which  Rev.  Wagner  appeals  so  eloquently,  the 
life  without  the  mere  pretense  of  leisure  and  study 
and  action,  with  no  undue  privileges,  asking  no 
"special  privileges,"  with  every  faculty  well 
trained,  able  to  do  one's  heart-work  without  fear 
or  favor  or  hindrance,  and  without  rapacity  or 
stubbornness.  It  is  to  be  not  easily  perturbed  by 
the  irremediable,  and  ready  for  every  civic  duty; 
to  win  and  retain  friends,  and  be  a  charming  per- 
sonage rather  than  one  of  power  and  strenuosity; 
to  feel  humanity's  great  heart-throb;  to  be  sin- 
cere, honest,  cheerful,  content,  charitable,  real; 
to  get  in  the  sunlight  on  the  heights,  and  be  nearer 
to  God  and  God's  world,  and,  in  a  word,  to  be  in 
tune  with  the  Infinite.  No  best  efforts,  boys,  can 
be  put  forth  without  the  sure  resulting  uplift. 

BOYHOOD 

Neither  quality  of  blood  nor  criminal  tenden- 
cies are  gifts  of  position,  or  of  any  one;  though 
position  may  be  an  evidence  of  what  is  in  a  boy, 
an  opportunity  for  its  manifestation.  What  a 
boy  is,  he  is  without  words,  place,  or  opportunity. 


98  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

No  life  lived  is  the  whole  of  what    one    is;  it  is 
fragmentary,   incomplete,   unsatisfactory. 

There  are  eight  hundred  thousand  boys  in  their 
teens  in  North  America,  and  twice  that  many  be- 
tween six  and  nineteen.  About  seven  hundred  and 
iRhy  thousand  boys  are  in  attendance  at  high 
school  in  sixty-five  hundred  such  institutions 
throughout  the  country.  There  are  more  boys 
in  penal  institutions  than  in  the  entire  member- 
ship of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  And  eighty-seven  per 
cent,  of  all  inmates  of  reform  schools  and  penal 
institutions  are  in  their  teens.  The  boy  in  his 
teens  stands  at  the  great  divide  in  life,  that  deter- 
mines his  future  as  an  asset  for  good  or  evil  to  the 
community.  It  is  a  fact  that  Puritanism  is  dying 
out  and  a  conglomerate  cosmopolitanism  is  taking 
its  place.  The  mechanical  times,  with  its  infinite 
contrivances  and  noisy  wheels,  is  materializing  the 
men  of  to-day,  and  the  peace  of  the  "fine  old  Eng- 
lish gentleman,  all  in  the  olden  times"  is  as  great 
a  ruin  as  the  acropolis  at  Athens  or  the  temple  at 
Thebes. 

UTILITY    IDEA    PREVALENT 

The  parade  in  the  press  of  the  ways  that  rich 
men  obtained  their  excessive  millions  inculcates 
the  idea  that  the  "greatest  thing  in  life"  is  the 
accumulation  of  wealth, — as  if  riches  were  all  of 
life.     There  is  more  than  materialism  in  life. 

The  sense  of  utility  begets  a  lack  of  reverence. 
The  boy  with  a  disrespect  for  parents  and  home 
has  taken  a  long  step  downward.     The  desire  to 


BIOLOGY  OF  CRIME  99 

get  away  from  home — no  love  for  parents — gives 
the  streets  a  fascination  for  the  boy,  and  he  revels 
in  the  explorations  he  makes  in  this  wild,  wicked, 
vagrant  street  world.  The  home  is  almost  en- 
tirely responsible  for  the  next  succeeding  genera- 
tion, for  the  kind  of  men  and  women  who  will 
direct  the  social  and  political  destinies  of  the  next 
immediate  descendants,  for  the  destiny  of  the 
state,  the  church,  the  schools,  the  home,  and  the 
history  of  the  human  race.  In  a  critical  spirit  a 
child-saver  exclaimed:  "Men  see  issues,  women  see 
men!"  The  world  is  to  be  regenerated  through 
the  children.  It  is  the  right  of  every  child  to  be 
well-born,   well-groomed,    well-educated. 

EXTRAVAGANCE 

A  wasteful  wife  can  throw  out  more  at  the 
back-door  with  a  spoon  than  a  man  can  put  in  in 
front  with  a  scoop.  There  are  so  many  ways  of 
wastefulness: — preparing  foods,  casting  the  re- 
mains in  the  slop-barrel,  cooking  twice  too  much, 
neglecting  clothing,  overlooking  the  vandalisms 
of  the  child,  and  so  on.  And  the  husband  may 
waste  it,  saying  he  earned  it  and  he  may  do  as  he 
pleases  with  his  own.  The  financial  problem  in 
the  home  thus  becomes  a  serious  matter,  and  in 
many  ways  reflects  upon  the  children.  The  earn- 
ing capacity  of  the  bread-winner  is  one  thing,  and 
the  lack  of  economy  and  carefulness  and  wisdom 
in  expending  the  income  is  another.  The  real 
needs  are  not  understood,  nor    the    possible  re- 


100  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

verses  of  the  morrow  calculated  upon.  Buying 
the  best  with  the  last  penny  is  a  manifestation  of 
a  lack  of  financial  judgment.  Winning  an  in- 
come requires  the  best  attention  and  effort,  but 
a  keen  sense  of  how  best  to  expend  it  and  for  what 
is  a  greater  study.  A  woman  that  is  not  born  a 
home-maker  is  chargeable  with  home  failure.  A 
well-trained  sense  of  economy  will  not  spend  all 
the  income,  but  will  save  a  part  of  it.  Indeed, 
worldly  success  and  happiness,  in  no  small  de- 
gree, depend  on  economy.  Without  the  saving 
sense,  there  is  extremity  that  is  a  social  and  moral 
turpitude.  Work  and  economy  is  the  maxim  of 
the  good  wife,  who  aids  her  husband  to  achieve 
success.  One  always  "hard  up"  has  not  gotten 
into  methods  of  prosperity,  and  it  is  idle  for  him 
to  hope  for  liberty  from  his  slavery  of  necessity. 


CHAPTER  XI 
JUVENILE  CRIMES 

A  German  writer  says: 

"The  greatest  advance  which  has  been  made  in 
the  care  of  juvenile  offenders  has  grown  out  of 
the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  dependent, 
neglected,  defective,  and  criminal  juveniles  rep- 
resent a  single  social  phenomenon  in  different 
phases  of  development.  As  there  is  a  necessary 
connection  between  neglect  of  children  and  juve- 
nile criminality,  the  evils  of  neglect  and  of  de- 
linquency should  be  attacked  by  the  same  meth- 
ods. The  moral,  physical,  and  economic  educa- 
tion of  the  children  of  to-day  will  decide  the  fate 
of  the  generation  of  to-morrow." 

Society  is  concerning  itself  more  about  the 
future  conduct  of  the  individual  than  about  the 
overt  act  he  may  have  committed,  becoming  more 
interested  in  what  he  will  do  than  in  what  he  has 
done.  The  mere  negative  effort  at  reform,  with 
no  new  interests  and  activities  offered,  is  not  suf- 
ficient to  achieve  much  and  permanent  good.  The 
juvenile  offender,  scarcely  a  "criminal,"  has  be- 
come recognized  as  a  "problem,"  and  laws  are  en- 
acted to  correct  and  save  him,  if  possible. 

RESPECT    FOR    LAW 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  too  little  respect 
is  shown  for  law,  and  certain  classes  sneer  at  it, 
declaring  it  to  be  all  pretense  and  sham.     It  is  a 
101 


102  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

license  to  criminals  when  laws  become  a  nullity 
for  policy's  sake.  Good  citizens  need  no  laws; 
they  are  only  for  the  violator.  This  sentiment  of 
disrespect  is  caught  by  boys,  and  they  come  to 
disregard  and  defy  legal  incumbrances,  and  break 
down  this  wall  of  defense  for  the  innocent.  After 
his  first  appearance  in  court  and  he  is  told  that 
sentence  is  suspended,  he  goes  out  to  his  "gang" 
and  with  a  leer  tells  his  pals  that  the  court  is 
"easy."  His  regard  for  law  is  weakened,  and  he 
feels  that  escape  from  it  is  no  difficult  thing.  The 
advice  given  by  the  court  the  boy  readily  prom- 
ises to  obey,  and  he  proceeds  at  once  to  forget  the 
"advice"  and  repeat  his  guilt.  The  guardianship 
affected  by  the  state  over  children  in  lax  homes 
is  not  as  effective  in  fact  as  in  theory.  Yet  juve- 
nile courts,  where  the  boy  is  differentiated  from 
the  adult,  have  accomplished  good  and  are  a  step 
in  the  right  direction,  correcting  in  part  evil  en- 
vironments. It  is  said  that  since  the  first  court 
was  established  in  Chicago  in  1889  about  eighty 
per  cent,  of  the  boys  put  on  probation  there 
have  not  appeared  again  in  court.  Some  of  the 
more  serious  offenders  are  sent  to  "detention 
homes,"  and  some  to  reform  schools,  under  state 
supervision,  for  longer  periods  of  time.  Some 
courts  have  in  connection  with  their  work  a  clinic 
or  child  study  department,  where  medical  exami- 
nation is  given.  Examination  shows  that  juve- 
nile delinquency  and  physical  defect  are  closely 
related.      The  lad's   history,    heredity,    environ- 


JUVENILE  CRIME  103 

ment,  associations,  how  he  came  to  be  a  truant, 
are  looked  into,  in  order  that  the  court  may  be 
able  to  reform  him  rather  than  punish  him,  uplift 
him  rather  than  degrade  him,  develop  and  make 
him  a  worthy  citizen  rather  than  a  criminal.  Said 
a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  when  the 
English  children's  bill  was  under  debate:  "We 
want  to  say  to  the  child,  that  if  the  world  or  the 
world's  law  has  not  been  his  friend  in  the  past,  it 
shall  be  now.  We  say  that  it  is  the  duty  of  this 
parliament,  and  that  this  parliament  is  determ- 
ined to  lift,  if  possible,  and  rescue  him,  to  shut 
the  prison  door,  and  to  open  the  door  of  hope." 

The  work  of  the  juvenile  court  at  best  is  pal- 
liative. As  in  all  modern  work  for  social  better- 
ment, prevention  is  here  the  vital  thing.  It  has 
in  mind  the  betterment  of  the  morals  of  incor- 
rigibles.  Great  care  and  intelligent  dealing  is 
required  in  this  difficult  work.  The  attitude  of  the 
state  in  the  care  and  correction  of  the  delinquent 
must  be  as  nearly  parental  as  possible,  forming 
the  child,  and  not  reforming  it,  correcting  the 
delinquent  parent,  improving  the  youngsters'  en- 
vironment, and  adding  good  opportunities  as  far 
as  possible  to  his  life.  Helpless  parents  are  to 
be  encouraged,  and  the  boy,  with  natural  instincts 
for  fun  and  play  and  adventure,  hampered  by 
city  ordinances  and  the  sure  consequences  of  a 
violation  thereof,  with  no  intentional  disregard 
of  the  rights  of  others,  must  be  dealt  with  in  a 
common-sense  way.  Such  boys  must  not  be  thrust 
into  jails  with  hardened  criminals. 


104  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

PUNISHMENTS     FOR     JUVENILE     INDISCRETIONS 

It  is  a  punishment  to  bring  the  over-energetic 
boy  even  to  court,  a  place  of  dread  and  frown. 
They  come  from  homes  that  are  failures,  from 
teachers  who  misapply  "justice"  to  a  boy  they  do 
not  study  or  understand,  and  from  the  hell  of  the 
streets.  Contributory  acts  by  others  lending  en- 
couragement to  freakish  boyish  misdeeds  should 
be  made  accessory  and  the  contributor  punish- 
able. The  object  of  the  court  is  to  enforce  obedi- 
ence, by  "advice"  if  possible,  then  next  by  a  place 
where  discipline  is  competent.  The  immature  cul- 
prit is  given  to  see  that  the  work  is  for,  not 
against  him.  The  court  does  an  administrative 
work  rather  than  compulsory.  The  idle  boy  past 
the  compulsory  school  age  is  made  to  understand 
that  idleness  is  not  tolerable,  and  he  must  find  work 
or  they  will  find  it  for  him  in  some  penal  indus- 
trial school.  He  is  put  upon  his  honor  to  be  just 
as  good  as  he  can  be  in  his  home,  his  neighbor- 
hood, and  the  school,  and  by  a  system  of  espion- 
age he  is  reported  frequently  to  the  court  as  to 
his  conduct.  They  are  made  to  comprehend  that 
they  are  little  citizens.  Wrong  doing  is  made  ap- 
pear odious  to  them  because  of  its  back-acting 
consequences.  The  liar  is  easily  detected,  and  by 
natural  methods  he  is  urged  to  tell  the  truth,  even 
in  his  own  slangy  way,  for  slang  is  less  offensive 
than  a  deliberate  lie,  and  much  less  harmful.  The 
idea  that  underlies  the  juvenile  court  is  less  a  sub- 
ject for  punishment  than  for  help,  because  of  in- 


JUVENILE  CRIME  106 

competent  homes  and  negligent  parents  and  un- 
toward surroundings  and  excessive  exuberances, 
— a  sort  of  prevention  work,  giving  the  stitch  in 
time  instead  of  waiting  for  the  criminal  deed  to 
bring  the  offender  into  court  under  duress. 
Where  amusement  and  recreation  occupy  the 
young  energy's  time,  the  opportunity  for  his 
idle,  restless  brain  to  develop  and  accomplish  mis- 
deeds is  removed.  Vile  talk,  the  precursor  of  vile 
actions,  is  a  fearful  thing.  Moral  instruction  and 
social  welfare  work  fail  in  the  face  of  this  appal- 
ling, vicious  evil.  No  boy's  mind  and  heart  are 
clean  and  right  that  are  sumps  for  the  infamous 
talk  and  salacious  stories  of  the  abandoned  dipped 
out  of  the  gutters  and  dregs  of  the  hopelessly 
depraved.  The  schools  and  the  church  could  do 
much  for  these  decaying  youths  by  giving  good 
interests  and  engagements  for  wasting  activities. 

MISTAKES    OF    COURTS 

The  idea  of  a  juvenile  court  for  the  trial  of 
childish  delinquencies  separate  from  the  criminal 
courts  where  mature  offenders  are  tried,  is  cor- 
rect. With  larger  powers  of  a  chancery  court 
granted  them,  they  can  accomplish  marvelous 
good  and  save  many  a  future  citizen  whose  feet  are 
just  started  in  the  ways  of  the  criminal. 

However,  the  mind  and  personality  of  the  judge 
himself  may  not  be  suited  to  the  great  purpose 
of  the  court.  For  instance,  one  judge  in  Ohio 
was  so  possessed  with  the  idea  of  "giving  the  boy 


106  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

one  more  chance,"  that  he  let  him  burn  three 
barns,  "just  to  see  the  hose  wagons  run,"  as  he 
confessed  in  court,  before  this  judge  compre- 
hended that  the  lad  was  an  incorrigible,  mentally 
a  mistake,  and  sent  him  to  the  reform  school  for 
the  good  of  society,  if  not  for  the  boy.  The  judge 
was  not  capable  of  reading  the  child-criminal  and 
distinguishing  him  from  others  who  offended 
through  excessive  energy.  The  "boy  problem" 
embraces  more  than  a  "chance,"  and  more  than 
^'confidential  advice,"  and  more  than  to  make  the 
boy  feel  he  has  a  "friend."  Too  often  poor,  in- 
competent officials  give  license  to  do  wrong  rather 
than  help  to  prevent  it.  Corrupt  human  nature 
is  not  all  good,  nor  error  misapplied  energy 
waiting  for  a  "chance"  to  do  right.  The  "chance" 
exists  before  as  well  as  after  the  wrong  deed. 
This  is  not  saying  that  no  good  influences  should 
be  offered  to  susceptibilities  for  good.  How  to 
make  these  good  susceptibilities  superior,  domi- 
nating, ruling,  submerging  the  wayward  impulses 
is  no  easy  matter,  and  cannot  be  done  by  "another 
chance"  alone.  The  boy  must  be  altered  into  en- 
vironments that  will  not  possess  temptations  to 
call  out  his  evil  tendencies  and  crystalize  them 
into  fixed  promptings.  The  opposite  tendencies 
must  be  exercised  and  developed,  or  the  court  is 
a  failure,  and  the  new  candidate  for  citizenship  a 
degenerate. 

METHODS    OF    TREATMENT 

Boston    first    adopted   the    system    of   separate 


JUVENILE  CRIME  107 

trial  for  the  child  offender,  and  the  idea  seemed 
good.  Chicago  was  the  first  city  to  organize  a 
juvenile  court  in  full  form, — in  1899.  The  move- 
ment opened  at  once  from  end  to  end  of  the  coun- 
try, and  brought  good  results.  Because  of  the 
character  of  the  juvenile  judge  and  his  methods, 
Denver  gained  national  distinction.  And  the 
judges  of  juvenile  courts  have  tried  various  expe- 
dients for  rescue  work  and  put  in  operation  many 
reclamation  plans,  with  various  degrees  of  suc- 
cess. It  is  the  general  idea  to  give  confidence, 
trust,  advice,  and  "another  chance."  When  the 
home,  or  the  teacher,  is  taking  the  proper  steps  to 
curse  the  soul  of  the  child,  the  court  interposes 
and  tries  to  undo  the  mistake.  The  slow  pon- 
derosity of  the  movement  to  commit  an  incor- 
rigible or  a  confirmed  truant  sometimes  permits 
him  to  run  to  seed,  before  the  "red-tape  business" 
has  exhausted  itself.  The  children's  court  should 
more  properly  be  a  parents'  court,  in  which  par- 
ents should  be  informed  how  to  train  up  children. 
A  good  many  boys  are  ordered  to  be  spanked 
openly  in  court  by  their  parents,  and  this  method 
has  its  taming  effects.  Brown,  Commissioner  of 
Education  for  the  United  States,  has  just  said: 
"It  strikes  me  that  it  is  better  to  have  a  boy 
whipped,  than  to  let  him  go  straight  to  the  devil." 
He  added:  "There  are  cases  undoubtedly  where 
a  loving  sort  of  whipping  has  shunted  a  boy  off 
the  downward  track,  but  it  is  pretty  hard  to  tell 
in  any  given  case  whether  it  will  have  that  effect 


108  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

or  not,  and  there  are  so  many  evils  attending  this 
form  of  punishment  that  it  seems  to  be  slowly  dy- 
ing out  in  this  country."  There  are  children 
whose  sensitive  hearts  and  minds  and  nervous 
states  could  not  endure  such  flogging, — to  whom 
it  would  be  a  cruelty.  Truants  and  unfortunate 
child  excesses  are  the  results  of  homes  with  no 
regularity  or  order  or  healthy  tone.  That  is  as 
much  as  to  say,  that  the  extirpation  of  criminals 
should  begin  with  the  parents  or  even  the  grand- 
parents. The  legal  machinery  is  not  effective  for 
doing  this,  for  like  all  other  men,  courts  are  prone 
to  believe  they  are  good  judges  of  human  nature, 
if  not  of  good  whiskey.  But  psychologic  experts 
and  alienists  are  profound  experts  at  groping  in 
the  dark.  The  solution  of  the  boy  problem  is 
measurably  the  solution  of  the  future.  The  ma- 
terial out  of  which  criminals  are  made  must  be 
destroyed.  "Carthage  must  be  destroyed."  It 
is  easier  to  prevent  the  making  of  an  individual 
than  it  is  to  correct  the  developed  unsound  man. 

BOY    ORGANIZATIONS 

The  "Parole  of  Honor  Court"  of  Chicago  was 
found  to  be  inefficient,  and  abandoned  in  1909. 
This  system  was  paternal  in  character,  and  first 
offenders  were  "paroled"  indefinitely  on  promises 
of  leading  better  lives,  and  required  to  return  once 
a  month  with  witnesses,  and  report. 

The  "Knights  of  Chivalry''  is  a  boy  organiza- 
tion, to  which  boys  from  ten  to  fifteen  are  eligible. 


JUVENILE  CRIME  109 

It  is  a  little  community  or  civic  state,  self-organ- 
ized and  self-controlled,  for  the  purpose  of 
amusement  and  profit.  They  have  a  salaried 
young  man  as  major-general;  divide  themselves 
into  quarter-hundred  companies  with  a  captain; 
require  no  pledges  at  first  but  obedience,  which 
in  time  itself  exacts  a  pledge  to  abstain  from  bad 
language  and  bad  habits  and  tobacco ;  have  a  reg- 
ular meeting  place;  outline  work  for  themselves 
of  a  humane  character;  instil  kindness  by  appeals 
to  the  boy's  higher  nature  and  his  honor;  give 
prizes  for  good  work  and  good  deportment;  try 
misdemeans  by  the  company  to  which  the  boy  be- 
longs; have  competitive  drills  and  monthly  ban- 
quets  given  by  mothers  and  friends. 

Children's  methods  of  self-government  are 
great  practical  self-helps.  The  self-government 
principle  applied  to  schools  shows  that  the  pupils 
made  better  grades  and  stood  higher  in  deport- 
ment than  before.  It  was  viewed  almost  as  a 
crime  to  fall  behind  in  work,  and  recitations  were 
rarely  a  failure.  The  motto  was  made  promi- 
nent, "He  can  conquer  who  thinks  he  can." 
"What  man  dare,  I  dare." 

WORK    A     POWERFUL    SA^aNG    AGENT 

\  It  is  the  idle  boy  who  goes  wrong,  the  street 
waif  who  drills  himself  in  misdemeanors.,'  Every 
boy,  rich  or  poor,  should  be  trained  in  habits  of 
useful,  creative  industry  and  the  proper  sense  of 
economy.     He  must  know  the  worth  of  a  dollar  by 


110  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

earning  it.  Loiterers  and  drones  are  passive  mis- 
takes, and  to-day  work  is  emphasized  more  than 
simple  faith.  Both  brain  and  hands  must  be 
taught  how  to  make  a  living.  For  riches  have 
wings,  and  are  at  best  but  an  earthly  insecurity, 
and  he  is  happier  who  "gets  out  and  hustles"  than 
the  non-essential  idler.  Work  develops  in  the  all- 
around  sense  which  the  demands  of  life  impose. 
Non-success — nonentity!  Work  develops  the 
seamy  side  of  life  into  the  bright  side,  and  hon- 
est toil  brings  health,  sleep,  rest,  appetite, — the 
complements  demanded  by  man's  active  nature. 
The  idle  rich  are  often  dyspeptics,  discontented, 
total  wrecks, — a  life  gone  wrong.  Indeed,  like 
Bismarck,  one  should  make  a  place  for  himself, 
instead  of  waiting  for  one  to  come  to  him  on  a  sil- 
ver platter.  Lean  on  no  one  but  yourself,  to  you 
the  most  important  person  in  the  universe.  Make 
all  the  friends  you  can,  for  before  you  close  your 
existence  you  will  have  enemies  enough  and  to 
spare.  Take  the  part  of  a  noble,  "real"  boy  in 
trying  to  make  your  home  better,  and  life  will  be 
sweeter  for  the  effort.  Make  your  parents  love 
you  for  your  unselfishness,  obedience,  good  tem- 
per, good  habits,  and  upward  effort.  Give  a 
"square  deal"  to  every  boy,  for  in  mature  life 
your  dull  classmate  may  outstrip  you  and  be  a 
big  man.  You  are  known  of  men  by  your  walk 
and  character.     Be  a  busy  boy. 

don'ts  for  boys 
Perhaps  it  may  be  useful  to  boys  to  read  this 


JUVENILE  CRIME  111 

list  of  don'ts,  given  by  a  New  York  Justice,  who 
believed  that  most  youthful  law-breaking  comes 
through  thoughtlessness  and  ignorance.  Read 
his  don'ts: 

"Don't  play  'cat'  in  the  street.  You  may  blind 
some  one. 

Don't  throw   stones   in   inter  school   fights. 

Don't  solicit  transfers  at  street-car  division 
points. 

Don't  stick  burrs  in  the  hair  of  street  or  *L' 
car  passengers. 

Don't  play  with  fire  or  build  bonfires  in  the 
street. 

Don't  'flip'  street-cars. 

Don't  shoot  air  guns  or  slingshots. 

Don't  write  on  the  sidewalk  or  draw  pictures 
there. 

Don't  throw  marble  'skimmers'  from  the  win- 
dows of  'L'  cars.  It  is  the  height  of  wanton- 
ness, for  you  can't  see  what  you  hit  if  you  do  hit 
anything. 

Don't  try  to  play  baseball  in  the  streets. 

Don't  throw  decayed  fruit  or  vegetables  at 
street-car  passengers. 

Don't  lounge  on  saloon  corners. 

Don't  fire  off  guns  or  fireworks  before  or  after 
July  4. 

Don't  swear. 

Don't  go  swimming  nude. 

Don't  hang  around  pool  parlors  and  cheap  mu- 
seums. 


112  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

Don't  carve  or  scratch  names  or  initials  on 
buildings. 

Don't  stay  out  late  at  night. 

Don't  shoot  craps. 

Don't  smoke  cigarettes. 

Don't  "rush  the  can" — not  even  your   own. 

Don't  climb  lampposts  to  blow  out  the  light. 

Don't  turn  on  the  fire  hydrants. 

Don't  pull  flowers  in  the  parks. 

Don't  sleep  out  at  night. 

Don't  climb  the  park  trees  or  cut  them. 

Don't  throw   stones." 

UNSOUND  CONDITIONS 

In  his  "Our  Country"  Rev.  Strong  might  have 
added  to  his  list  of  perils  the  street  peril.  There 
the  night-prowling  boy  touches  the  born  criminal, 
— ^just  as  are  born  idiots,  insane,  physical  de- 
fectives. There  he  meets  the  intemperate  and 
others  of  unclassified  and  unclassifiable  ideas, 
who  riot  in  saturnalian  debauchery,  disregard 
marriage  ties  (as  did  Zola's  "Nana"),  and  propa- 
gate a  criminal  population  of  degenerate  beings. 
Seen  from  the  standpoint  of  these  undesirables, 
crime  is  merely  an  expression  in  some  manner  of 
their  unsound  tendencies  and  defective  organiza- 
tions. 


CHAPTER  XII 
EXTERNAL   REMEDIAL   EFFORTS 

The  effort  to  make  sentiment  to  stem  the  tide 
of  young,  fresh,  country  blood  to  the  cities,  and 
induce  others  who  came  in  ignorance  of  city  hard- 
ships and  temptations  to  return  to  the  farm,  is 
not  to  be  discouraged.  This  back-to-the-farm 
movement  is  not  a  panacea  for  modern  city  irreg- 
ularities, for  it  does  not  go  to  the  root  of  the 
matter.  Birth  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  true  reforms 
and  millenniums  and  the  perpetuity  of  the  govern- 
ment. The  effeminating  effects  of  riches  beget  ef- 
feminate men,  and  want  of  virility  means  eventual 
death  to  state,  home,  church.  After  birth — can 
the  Ethiopian  change  his  skin  or  the  leopard  his 
spots?  The  sun  upon  the  broad  fields  will  doubt- 
less assist  the  consumptive,  help  the  defectives,  re- 
move opportunities  from  the  degraded,  and  assist 
the  individual  in  many  ways,  but  would  not  affect 
the  succeeding  generation  in  the  city. 

"Back  to  the  farm"  is  a  warning;  yet  men  and 
women  will  swarm  to  the  cities,  endure  poverty, 
though  not  needed  there,  while  the  farms  lie  idle 
or  are  unskilfully  cultivated.  People  less  love 
solitude  than  the  enjoyments  of  masses,  notwith- 
standing Adam  and  Eve  were  solitary  farmers 
and  primarily  vegetarians,  though  Adam  made 
his  wife's  clothing  of  the  skins  of  animals,  which 
doubtless  he  slew  for  food.  Human  yearning  for 
113 


114  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

human  companionship  is  natural,  for  man's  grex 
nature  will  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less. 

ITS    COMMERCIAL    MEANING 

Doubtless  this  back-to-the-farm  idea  is  an  effort 
that  will  result  in  an  increased  supply  of  food 
products  and  reduce  the  high  cost  of  living,  one 
of  the  most  vital  commercial  problems  that  has 
ever  exercised  economic  pens.  The  flux  to  the 
cities  increases  the  number  of  consumers  and  de- 
creases the  number  of  producers.  The  influx  of 
about  a  million  immigrants  annually  abnormally 
increases  the  number  of  consumers  without  in- 
creasing the  number  of  producers.  This  grave 
problem  cannot  be  analyzed  in  a  word  here.  It 
is  insistent,  demanding.  The  materialism  of  life 
demands  more  foodstuffs  so  that  prices  may  be 
reasonable,  and  have  less  the  appearance  of  graft 
at  man's  extremity.  To-day  there  are  hungry 
people  in  our  cities,  and  conditions  need  to  be  re- 
lieved so  that  this  cannot  be.  Farmers'  unions  are 
increasing  in  numbers  and  might,  in  order  to  gain 
still  greater  financial  returns, — an  inhuman  move- 
ment. Co-operation  is  good,  but  distraining  the 
consumer  is — what!  The  farmers  inform  them- 
selves as  to  the  best  markets  in  which  to  sell  and 
buy.  They  are  storing  their  products  in  elevators 
and  cold-storage  receptacles,  and  thus  "boosting" 
prices  abnormally.  The  principles  and  gains  by 
this  method  of  "co-operation"  are  expounded  in 
their  agricultural  papers,  and  the  movement  can 


REMEDIAL  EFFORTS  116 

only  be  fairly  met  by  counter  organization  of  con- 
sumers. 

AGRICULTURAL    SCHOOLS 

The  farm,  in  its  natural  seclusiveness  and  touch 
with  nature,  is  less  susceptible  to  the  corrupting 
influences  of  commercialism  and  cosmopolitanism 
than  the  dweller  in  the  city.  It  is  an  easily  under- 
stood fact  that  rural  children  do  not  have  equal 
advantages  of  education  that  the  children  of  the 
city  have.  To  qualify  the  farm  children  for  farm 
life,  plans  are  proposed  for  establishing  agricul- 
tural schools,  in  which  farm  works  may  be  more 
fully  and  better  taught  and  the  farm  and  the 
farm  life  made  more  interesting.  The  country 
public  school  is  not  as  competent,  from  the  nature 
of  the  case,  as  city  schools,  equipped  with  special 
teachers,  department  methods,  and  better  school 
paraphernalia,  to  educate  the  young.  The  essen- 
tial idea  underlying  the  idea  of  agricultural 
schools  is  to  render  the  prospective  young  farmer 
better  equipped  to  wrest  success  from  the  soil. 
These  schools  should  be  in  close  proximity  to  the 
common  schools. 

The  migration  of  boys  from  the  country  to  the 
city  is  a  cause  of  many  downfalls  and  ruined  fu- 
ture citizens.  Rural  agricultural  schools  would 
stem  in  a  degree  the  flow  of  young  blood  to  the 
thrill  of  the  city,  and  also  show  the  beauty  and 
blessings  of  the  farm,  since  "the  farmer  feeds  us 
all."  Farming  is  a  natural  occupation,  and  the 
most  natural  pursuit  of  all.     Should  the  young 


116  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

men  remain  on  the  farm,  they  would  be  assured 
of  a  living,  and  relieve  somewhat  the  congested 
labor  market  of  the  cities  and  help  in  so  far  to 
solve  the  "labor  problem."  The  best  thing  is  to 
grow  up  on  the  farm  and  assimilate  the  farm  spirit 
and  ideal  and  science,  and  enjoy  farm  indepen- 
dence and  honor  and  a  contented,  green  old  age. 
The  farm  life  is  open,  healthful,  exposed,  full  of 
hard  work  and  overtime,  but  food  is  palatable  and 
rest  sweet.  The  theoretical  farming,  illustrated 
by  Horace  Greeley  in  "what  he  knew  about  farm- 
ing," has  not  proved  a  success.  It  is  real,  practi- 
cal. The  industrious  farmer  is  the  salt  of  the 
earth.  His  home  is  nearer  heaven  than  is  the  city 
dweller's. 

GROWTH   OF   CITIES 

When  Washington  was  President  only  SA  per 
cent,  of  the  four  millions  of  people  were  in  the 
cities;  now  at  least  35  per  cent,  are  in  the  cities. 
The  overcrowding  of  the  cities  and  their  congested 
districts  make  a  return  to  the  farm  a  neces- 
sity. The  United  States  is  just  now  money-mad, 
graft  is  rife,  and  the  quality  of  the  moral  sense 
unstrained.  The  pendulum,  naturally,  will  swing 
back  again,  and  we  will  return  to  the  simple  life. 
A  French  writer  predicts  that  in  the  cycle  of  a 
century  very  few  persons  will  live  in  the  cities,  and 
that  they  will  then  be  but  places  of  business. 
However,  since  the  days  when  the  sons  of  men 
built  Babel,  and  Achilles'  wrath  gave  rise  to  the 
saying,  "Troy  was,"  and  men  populated  No,  cities 
have  existed,  and  will  exist  to  the  end  of  time. 


REMEDIAL  EFFORTS  117 

COST    OF    LIVING 

It  means  poor  citizenship,  in  a  comparative 
degree,  when  wages  are  all  consumed  in  living, — 
food,  rent,  clothes,  fuel,  medicine,  extravagance, 
with  nothing  left  for  amusements,  luxury, 
enjoyment,  qualification  for  labor  and  happi- 
ness. A  surplus  of  wages  would  alleviate  the  hide- 
bound conditions  of  a  toil-weary  life,  and  life 
would  be  benefited  by  the  removal  of  tax  from 
industry  and  putting  it  on  privilege  and  inheri- 
tance— if  we  may  agree  as  to  what  "privilege" 
means.  The  socialistic  idea  of  placing  a  dual  tax 
on  land  values  and  buildings  is  nothing  more  than 
a  palliative  measure,  to  say  the  very  least,  and 
for  unequal  justice  it  holds  the  palm.  It  is  simply 
a  measure  to  oppress  the  rich,  and  perhaps  for 
no  better  reason  than  that  his  energies  have  won 
success  and  riches. 

Years  ago  the  grangers  fought  the  railroads, 
fought  the  high  rates  of  transportation,  and 
charged  railroads  with  the  failure  of  the  farmers. 
Now  the  dealer  between  the  farmer  and  the  con- 
sumer is  caught  between  the  upper  and  the  nether 
millstone,  and  the  railroads  are  properly  accred- 
ited with  helping  the  farmer  get  his  products 
cheaply  to  the  consumer.  And  the  politician  is  no 
longer  esteemed  as  a  go-between.  The  railroads 
and  the  farmer  now  co-operate  to  their  mutual 
benefit  at  the  expense  of  the  consumer. 

The  cost  of  food,  fuel,  clothing,  and  other  items 
of  living,  has  advanced  since  1898,  forty-four  per 


118  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

cent.     In  other  words,  it  requires  1.44  to-day  to 
purchase  the  same  goods  that  $1  would  purchase 
then ;  or  what  $1000  would  buy  then  it  takes  $1440 
to  buy  now.     This  means  that  incomes  must  be 
proportionately   increased   or   the   cost   of  living 
decreased.     This  increase  in  prices  cannot  be  laid 
to   transportation,    for    freight    rates    have   been 
steadily  reduced.     The  consumer  has  not  reaped 
the   benefit    of    this    reduction    in    transportation 
rates.    And  railroad  earnings  are  two  hundred  and 
forty  million  dollars  less  annually  than  in  1898. 
The  cost  of  things  is  no  less.     Then  the  only  other 
one  to  benefit  by  this  state  of  things  is  the  dealer 
or  the  seller.     The  sellers  are  the  merchants  and 
the  farmers.     A  comparison  of  prices  shows  that 
the  products  of  the  farm  will  buy  at  least  twice 
as  much  as  they  would  thirty  years   ago.     The 
reason  for  failure  on  the  farm  to-day  is  less  be- 
cause of  low  prices   than   of  extravagance,  than 
of    luxuriousness.     It    is    true    that    these    times 
heighten   the   sense   that   demands   luxuries,    such 
as  were  not  required  in  pioneer  times.     Organiza- 
tion has  increased  the  demand  for  luxuries   and 
superfluities  upon  the  part  of  the  laboring  classes 
that  a  half  century  ago  were  not  dreamed  of,  did 
not  enter  the  mind  of  man  as  a  part  of  his  pos- 
sibilities or  wishes.     So  that  our  leading  sin  now 
is  extravagance.     People  are  prospering  and  lit- 
erally  wasting  their   money,   and   too   many   are 
squandering  a  life  that  might  be  made  serviceable 
to  home  and  country. 


REMEDIAL  EFFORTS  119 

So  many  unfair  forms  of  life  exist  now,  and 
so  many  false  sentiments  are  current,  that  it  is 
no  wonder  young  lives  are  shaped  by  them,  and 
the  future  citizen  imbibing  a  force  that  will  alter 
the  destiny  of  our  people  and  affect  the  future 
of  the  state  and  the  churches. 

TEMPEEANCE 

It  enters  not  into  our  purpose  here  to  discuss 
the  success  or  failure  of  legal  prohibition,  but 
to  indicate  how  to  suppress  the  evil — a  personal 
affair.  There  are  those  who  say  that  prohibition, 
a  sort  of  paternalism  and  sumptuary  measure  as 
ordinarily  treated  by  legislators,  is  the  only  or 
at  least  the  only  present  available  and  immediate 
remedy;  and  others  say  it  has  failed  where  tried. 
Perhaps  no  one  questions  the  harmful  effects  of 
intemperance,  its  insidiousness,  reaching  and  per- 
meating families,  affecting  the  future  of  boys' 
lives,  and  therefore  injuring  city,  government, 
home,  and  church.  The  effects  of  intemperance 
on  the  future  citizen  cannot  be  estimated  in  words. 
Not  the  theories  of  legislation  or  legislators,  not 
remedies  for  the  evil  of  the  "wine  when  it  is  red," 
not  the  methods  to  exterminate  intemperance  by 
law  and  force,  but  how  to  save  the  child  so  that 
such  remedies  will  be  needless.  The  disgrace  of 
Noah  still  disgraces  men  and  women. 

Primarily  abstemiousness  is  an  individual  mat- 
ter, each  one  directing  himself  in  this  as  in  his 
morals  and  beliefs  and  politics.     Much  said  on  the 


120  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

subject  is  pure  sentiment  and  therefore  of  no  prac- 
tical value.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  temper- 
ance is  as  much  a  matter  of  education  as  of  legis- 
lation. As  long  as  the  habit  of  drink  possesses 
men,  they  will  have  liquor  to  drink,  law  or  no  law. 
A  help  to  temperance  reformation  may  be  gained 
by  making  the  saloon  impossible — the  creature  of 
the  demand,  the  external  thing,  the  symptom,  so 
to  speak, — but  genuine  temperance  lies  still  be- 
yond that.  This  problem  in  cities  is  complex  and 
insistent. 

Women  orators  have  said,  with  some  reason  for 
the  statement,  that  liquor  is  increasing  the  human 
riffraff,  ragtag  and  bobtail,  the  law-breakers, 
gamblers,  confidence  men,  female  dishonor,  boot- 
leggers, and  bringing  alcoholism  upon  children  and 
hereditary  intoxication.  It  is  a  precursor  of  pov- 
erty, ignorance,  filth,  wasted  energies,  premature 
death,  insanity;  of  shadows,  palsied  hopes,  "white 
slave"  traffic.  A  good  legend  for  a  saloon  mirror 
would  be:  "Crime  and  disease  sold  here.  Our 
goods  guaranteed  to  maim  and  destroy,  even  into 
the  third  and  fourth  generation." 

A  measure  practiced  by  a  Scotch  manufacturer 
was  to  increase  wages  ten  per  cent,  to  men  who 
came  to  him  at  the  end  of  the  year  and  said  they 
had  been  total  abstainers.  He  said  "it  worked  like 
a  charm."  Railroads  are  refusing  to  employ  men 
who  drink.  Fewer  and  fewer  are  becoming  the 
positions  open  to  men  with  the  drink  habit.  Con- 
vinced that  legal  prohibition  is  practically  impos- 


REMEDIAL  EFFORTS  121 

sible  in  any  large  community,  Cardinal  Gibbons 
thinks  that  the  best  means  to  promote  temperance 
is  to  limit  the  number  of  saloons  by  high  license. 
For  a  second  violation  of  a  law  like  this  he  advised 
the  revocation  of  the  license.  Any  incessant  vio- 
lation of  a  prohibitory  law  causes  it  to  be  viewed 
with  disrespect.  It  is  not  that  laws  may  not  be 
enacted  against  this  great  evil,  but  what  good  have 
they  done?  State  management  of  saloons  has  not 
been  a  success.  The  Norwegian  plan  of  granting 
a  commercial  company  a  monopoly  of  the  business 
has  done  good,  but  has  not  removed  the  cause 
for  the  saloons.  In  Denmark  a  policeman  picks 
up  the  incapable  drunk  in  the  street,  sends  him 
in  a  cab  to  the  station  to  sober  up,  then  sends 
him  home,  and  the  bill  of  expenses  for  this  care 
for  the  inebriate  is  presented  to  the  owner  of  the 
saloon  where  the  poor  fellow  got  his  last  drink. 
In  Turkey  the  punishment  for  the  first  offense 
is  the  bastinado;  punishment  is  again  inflicted  for 
the  second  and  third  offenses;  after  that  the  of- 
fender becomes  "privileged,"  and  may  be  care- 
fully taken  home  by  a  policeman. 

It  has  been  proposed  by  commissioners  for  the 
District  of  Columbia  to  grant  power  to  all  citizens 
to  arrest  any  one  seen  staggering  on  the  street. 
He  may  be  cared  for  in  an  inebriate  hospital,  and 
the  expenses  for  the  hospital  treatment  must  be 
borne  by  himself. 

It  seems  to  go  more  radically  toward  this  great 
evil,  to  teach  the   children   sanitary   science,   and 


IftSt  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

the  dangers  of  alcohol  to  health,  life,  prospects, 
society,  government,  and  the  church.  The  saving 
of  individuals  must  have  in  it  the  view  of  society, 
and  society  cannot  be  saved  that  does  not  take 
account  of  individuals.  But  no  system  of  society, 
no  socialism,  no  laws,  will  prevent  the  mistakes 
of  young  men,  who  have  full  powers,  every  op- 
portunity, all  inducements  to  manliness,  but  who 
will  not  be  manly.  Real  reformation  must  begin 
under  the  skin,  beneath  the  surface,  in  the  mind 
and  heart. 

RELIGION    IN    SCHOOLS 

state  religion — no.  Sectarian  religion — no. 
Church  doctrines  and  rules  and  interpretations 
of  the  Bible  and  rites  and  sacraments  and  theology 
— no.  But  where  some  sect  interposes  itself 
against  religion  in  the  schools,  to  heed  the  ob- 
jectors is,  in  a  manner,  to  recognize  their  form 
of  religion.  Such  open  opposition  puts  discredit 
upon  the  Bible  itself,  and  places  it  in  the  Index 
Expurgatorius.  Our  schools  are  non-sectarian, 
and  still  a  divine  product  of  the  Bible.  In  exclud- 
ing it  from  the  schools,  we  may,  like  the  farmer, 
be  nourishing  a  cold  viper  in  our  bosoms.  If  the 
Bible  in  the  public  schools  should  be  thought  to 
hurt  some,  let  them  not  turn  and  try  to  injure  the 
public  schools.  There  is  no  law  to  forbid  the 
establishment  of  their  own  schools.  Congress 
can  make  no  law  "prohibiting  the  free  exercise 
of  religion,"  but  sects  strive  to  do  it.  No  one 
cares  to  be  forced  into  an  acceptance  of  sectarian- 


REMEDIAL  EFFORTS  123 

ism,  of  course,  or  have  the  foundations  of  his  gov- 
ernment removed.  In  view  of  this  misguided  op- 
position to  the  common  schools,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  so  many  have  impossible,  unaccountable,  ir- 
responsible ideas. 

The  hope  is  entertained  that  all  classes  of  opin- 
ions and  creeds  will  become  so  Americanized  in 
time  that  taxation  for  any  general  purpose  will 
not  fall  unwillingly  on  any  one  group  of  citizens 
who  cannot  subscribe  to  the  general  purpose  of  the 
tax.  It  is  a  difficult  matter,  however,  to  levy  a  gen- 
eral school  tax  that  will  not  be  offensive  to  the 
moral  conscience  of  un-American  institutions.  It 
would  be  fatuous  for  the  government  to  submit 
to  the  dictations  of  special  groups  of  men,  for 
that  would  mean  their  triumph.  Even  as  it  is  they 
have  little  hesitancy  in  striving  to  sway  the  politi- 
cal mind  to  their  limited  purposes.  A  judge  of  the 
court  has  said : 

"This  wiping  out  of  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the 
children  of  all  reference  to  Christ  is  fearful  to  con- 
template. Our  children  are  the  hope  of  the  coun- 
try, and  it  is  our  duty  to  inform  them  on  matters 
religious.  .  .  .  It  is  a  calamity  that  it  should 
occur  in  a  great  country  of  eighty  millions  of 
people." 

Commercialism  rules  out  the  sense  of  helpful- 
ness. The  day  of  service  is  passing;  the  day  of 
selfishness  is  at  hand.  Johnny  is  taught  that  with 
a  good  arithmetic  lesson,  some  day  he  may  own 
a  sweatshop  of  his  own.    Educational  methods  are 


1«4  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

becoming  too  individualistic,  drilling  into  the  head 
the  idea  of  getting  ahead,  of  using  other  means  for 
that  purpose,  and  destroying  the  human  sense 
of  service  to  others.  The  absence  of  Biblical  in- 
fluence in  our  public  schools  will  cause  distress- 
ful injury  to  our  national  life. 

The  moral  force  of  the  American  school  system 
is  apparent  in  the  opposition  of  certain  religious 
sects,  who  regard  them  as  militating  against  their 
special  brand  of  morals,  as  interfering  with  their 
propagandism  and  power.  In  this  fact  is  seen 
how  well  men  perceive  in  the  child  the  future  citi- 
zen and  religionist.  The  schools  being  so  corre- 
lated to  the  home,  it  seems  that  schools  ought  also 
to  teach  morality.  Those  who  maintain  separate 
schools  perceive  the  necessity  of  teaching  religion 
in  them,  the  chief  object  indeed  of  such  schools. 

The  primary  object  of  the  schools  is  to  train 
up  the  future  citizen  for  usefulness  and  success, 
not  merely  for  material  life,  and  to  conquer  his 
wayward  emotions,  and  give  better  direction  to 
his  tendencies  and  aspirations  and  hopes,  and  stim- 
ulate him  to  right  thinking,  right  feeling,  right 
acting, — all  there  is  of  life.  In  its  fullness  it  is 
to  put  conduct  above  career,  character  above  call- 
ing, to  make  men  fit  for  good  citizenship.  Said 
one  educator:  "For  after  all  that  has  been  said, 
the  determining  factor  in  life,  that  which  makes 
it  worthy  or  unworthy,  a  blessing  or  a  curse  to  the 
individual  and  to  society,  is  the  choice  between 
right   and  wrong,   and   conscienceless   intelligence 


REMEDIAL  EFFORTS  1«6 

is  more  dangerous  than  conscienceless  ignorance, 
because  it  means  increased  power,  without  in- 
creased protection  against  its  abuse."  Another 
man  wrote :  "A  man  is  more  than  a  citizen,  a  voter, 
an  office  holder.  He  is  brother,  husband,  father, 
man,  and  has  a  spiritual  nature  which  requires 
fullest  training.  .  .  .  Every  man  is  a  con- 
stituent part  of  society,  and  has  a  present  and 
eternal  responsibility.  Character  within  ourselves 
and  fitness  for  service  to  others,  are  the  great  end 
of  discipline,  the  great  purpose  of  life's  experi- 
ences, at  home,  in  society,  in  church,  in  govern- 
ment." 


CHAPTER  XIII 
CHILD  LABOR 

After  toiling  and  maintaining  a  child  until  it 
is  fourteen,  it  is  singular  how  suddenly  the  child's 
labor  is  discovered  to  be  absolutely  necessary  to 
the  "bread  and  butter"  problem  in  some  families. 

Socialists,  in  an  extraordinary  interest  in  child 
life,  in  ex  parte  energy  as  one  in  a  weak  cause, 
declare  that  the  poor  child,  under  present  institu- 
tions, is  but  a  by-product  for  the  use  of  capital. 
To  be  sure,  much  of  the  sentiment  is  maudlin, 
excessive,  hasty,  but  quite  due  to  the  seriousness 
of  the  subject.  There  are  always  enthusiasts,  as 
there  are  poor.  There  have  been  federations  of 
societies  and  committees  interested  in  child  labor 
abuses,  for  the  better  urging  of  the  education  and 
physical  development  of  the  child,  so  that  it  may 
meet  the  requirements  of  industrial  efficiency  and 
the  demands  of  citizenship. 

The  problem  of  living  is  the  greatest  thing  in 
life,  with  most  people,  and  has  been  since  God  cast 
Adam  and  Eve  out  of  the  Garden  of  Eden.  So 
parents,  who  permit  their  children  to  work  for 
them,  are  more  reprehensible  than  the  employer. 
The  abuse  heaped  on  the  employer  is  neither  just 
nor  brotherly,  when  an  equal  share  of  censure 
belongs  to  the  unfeeling  parent  that  leads  his  child 
and  offers  him  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  employer.  No 
one  is  going  into  the  parental  home  and  drag  the 
126 


CHILD  LABOR  1^7 

child  to  the  factory  or  the  mine.  Labor  unions 
have  with  malicious  persistence  heaped  censure 
alone  upon  the  manufacturer,  but  notwithstand- 
ing this  injustice  it  produced  a  wholesome  senti- 
ment and  brought  about  laws  restricting  child 
labor  in  factories.  The  message  of  President 
Roosevelt,  read  to  Congress,  December,  1906, 
urged  the  passage  of  national  laws  to  control  or 
regulate  child  labor.  President  Taft  has  since 
made  the  same  recommendation.  Some  child  labor 
bills, — a  sort  of  sop  to  Cerberus, —  have  been 
brought  up  in  Congress. 

LEGAL   ENACTMENTS 

The  states  have  laws  regulating  child  labor,  but 
they  in  general  hedge  about  the  employer  with 
fines  and  penalties  that  they  seem  to  be  the  prod- 
uct of  malice  rather  than  of  universal  justice.  The 
child  and  the  parent  are  privileged  characters  un- 
der these  laws,  no  penalties  attaching  to  them,  as 
if 

"Bidding  the  law  make  court'sy  to  their  will." 

In  general  child  labor  laws  fix  the  age  limit 
at  fourteen,  below  which  no  child  shall  be  em- 
ployed for  wages  by  any  firm  employing  as  many 
as  five  persons.  And  they  limit  the  hours  of  labor 
and  forbid  the  night  work  of  all  under  sixteen. 

Investigators  say  that  night  work  is  ruining 
boys,  especially  the  boys  in  the  messenger  service. 
In  the  shadow  of  darkness  they  are  sent  on  ille- 


128  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

gitimate  errands,  sent  to  saloons  for  "half  pints," 
to  drug  stores  for  opium,  and  worst  of  all,  to  dis- 
orderly houses  with  notes.  Only  in  Russia  are 
children  allowed  to  work  all  night,  just  as  they 
do  in  the  United  States.  There  is  little  hope  of 
promotion  to  some  better  employment  for  the 
night-working  boy,  who  has  entered  the  "blind 
alley"  or  "dead  end"  of  industry.  And  few  of 
them  learn  trades,  and  are  perforce  recruits  for 
the  ranks  of  the  unemployed  and  undesirables. 
Night  work  is  a  device  for  the  moral  and  physical 
destruction  of  boyhood  and  future  manhood. 

No  child,  or  boy,  should  be  permitted  to  enter 
the  industrial  world  until  he  can  read  and  write 
and  cipher.  There  is  great  need  of  a  general  fed- 
eral law,  defining  the  age,  the  hours  of  labor, 
health,  educational  tests,  character  of  the  employ- 
ment and  its  sanitary  condition,  and  affixing  penal- 
ties. 

The  emancipation  of  childhood  from  the  slavery 
of  labor,  and  preserving  its  rights  to  a  fair  chance 
in  life  by  law  are  demanding.  Servitude  should 
not  be  its  price  of  birth.  It  should  not  be  obliged 
to  sell  its  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage.  Too 
often  is  it  the  case  that  the  parent  enters  the  gang 
of  aristocratic  non-producers,  when  his  child  be- 
comes a  breadwinner.  Indeed,  child  labor  is  dwarf- 
ing mentally,  physically,  socially,  and  can  be  justi- 
fied on  no  ground  beyond  immediate  emergency. 

POVERTY 

The  causes  of  poverty  lie  in  the  blood,  in  the 


CHILD  LABOR  1189 

training,  in  environment.     Pauperism  is  due  to: — 

1.  Extravagance. 

2.  Shiftlessness. 
S.     Laziness. 

4.  Domestic  infelicity. 

5.  Misfortune. 

6.  Low  ideals. 

7.  Two  sets  of  children  in  the  same  family. 

8.  Environment. 

9.  Atavism. 

10.  Ir  religion. 

11.  Ignorance. 

12.  Intemperance. 

13.  Sickness. 

14.  Unsanitary  conditions. 

15.  Incompetency. 

16.  Want  of  trade  and  skillfulness. 

17.  Lack  of  owvrage  d^esprit^  or  the  spirit  of 
labor. 

18.  Want  of  remunerative  employment. 

And  out  of  poverty  comes  disease,  extremity^ 
poor  citizenship.  Honest  poverty  may  not  be  a 
crime,  but  it  is  dreadfully  unfortunate  and  incon- 
venient. It  is  not  always  the  fault  of  the  individ- 
ual, but  it  is  so  too  frequently.  It  is  not  always 
to  be  overcome,  because  of  outward  circum- 
stances, misfortune,  sickness,  accidents,  and  un- 
fortunate ventures.  It  is  a  cause  for  gratitude 
that  there  is  no  law  yet  to  compel  one  man  to  open 
his  purse,  engage  in  business,  and  employ  another 
because  he  demands  it.     And  position  should  be- 


130  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

long  to  no  one  who  does  not  deserve  it,  after  an 
investigation  by  a  committee. 

CHAEITY 

Organized  charity  has  in  mind  the  immediate 
relief  of  distress,  removal  of  the  evils  to  health, 
correction  of  poor  sanitary  conditions,  and  the 
uplift  from  bad  environments,  not  omitting  to  en- 
force the  spirit  of  education  in  the  young.  Those 
who  are  somewhat  ancient  in  their  habits  can  only 
be  corrected  by  death. 

The  slums  in  New  York  are  said  to  be  the  worst 
in  the  world.  And  Jacob  Riis  has  not  been  able 
to  remove  the  conditions  of  "the  submerged  tenth." 

The  great  charity  worker  of  the  seventeenth 
century  was  St.  Vincent  de  Paul.  Frederick  Oza- 
man,  founder  of  the  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  society 
in  1836,  showed  the  needs  of  co-operation  in  help- 
ing the  poor  back  to  normal  self-support. 

The  giving  of  food  to  needy  school  children, 
regardless  of  the  parents'  worthiness  or  unworthi- 
ness,  cannot  be  justified  for  the  reason  that  no 
parent  should  be  guiltless  of  all  responsibility  for 
his  progeny.  Supposedly  the  majority  of  the 
children  to  receive  such  benefits  would  come  from 
the  streets,  intemperate  homes,  and  the  otherwise 
improvident  and  shiftless.  Doubtless  underfeed- 
ing has  as  many  sins  to  answer  for  as  overfeeding. 
Who  should  do  this  sort  of  reform  work  and  who 
is  to  pay  for  it,  are  questions  not  easily  deter- 
mined.    The  debt  for  this  work  would  be  an  afflic- 


CHILD  LABOR  181 

tion,  if  not  a  punishment,  of  the  industrious  and 
tax-paying  citizen.  A  breakfastless  boy  is  in  no 
condition  to  study  in  the  school  room.  Such  a 
measure  would  open  the  sluice-way  for  imposture. 
Paris  has  tried  something  of  this  kind,  and  Lon- 
don has  considered  it  with  a  view  to  its  adoption. 
Hungary  views  every  child  as  a  government  as- 
set, and  endeavors  to  make  him  a  valuable  citizen. 
It  is  conceded  in  the  United  States  that  poor  chil- 
dren should  be  assisted  to  attend  school. 

WRONGS  OF    CHILD  EMPLOYMENT 

There  have  been  organized  societies  for  the  sup- 
pression of  child  labor  through  the  creation  of  a 
public  sentiment  favoring  such  a  step.  They  gave 
public  lectures,  sent  out  statistics,  and  otherwise 
informed  the  public  about  it.  Since  1885  there 
has  been  an  increase,  speaking  generally,  of  fifty 
per  cent,  in  population  and  one  hundred  per  cent, 
in  child  labor.  The  "bitter  cry  of  the  poor  chil- 
dren," in  the  nature  of  things,  militates  against 
good  citizenship.  He  who  purchases  the  products 
of  child  labor,  must  not  say  the  guilt  lies  entirely 
at  the  door  of  the  "inhuman  octopus,"  or  the  low- 
wage  manufacturer,  or  the  want  of  legal  enact- 
ments. The  assertion,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
nothing  must  interfere  with  business,  that  jugger- 
naut of  the  age,  is  no  less  heartless  than  it  is  un- 
sound. 

There  is  no  play  for  the  child  of  the  mill,  no 
time  for  reading  and  recreation,  no  cultivated  gar- 


132  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

dens,  no  home  comforts,  no  time  for  school,  and 
it  becomes  prematurely  old.  Young  mothers  are 
there,  with  a  child  misbegotten,  misborn,  under- 
sized, feeble,  marked  with  hereditary  weakness, 
handicapped  for  life.  They  will  be  less  men  than 
their  fathers,  and  will  not  be  able  to  fight  Bunker 
Hills  and  Getty sburgs.  The  flabby,  scrawny, 
weak-eyed  factory  population,  their  lot  is  seem- 
ingly hopeless.  The  spirit  of  commercialism  has 
them  like  an  obsession.  The  introduction  of  ma- 
chinery, steam  and  electricity  has  made  child  labor 
possible.  Nearly  two  millions  of  children  under 
fourteen  are  at  work  in  the  factories  of  the  United 
States,  living  daily  in  the  sight  of  the  greed  of  the 
commercial  spirit,  and  unable  to  obtain  an  under- 
standing of  the  benefits  of  higher  citizenship  and 
the  love  of  God !  Stunted  by  early,  untimely  labor, 
drudging  in  the  mill,  in  the  factory,  in  the  mine, 
they  are  robbed  of  the  best  good  of  life.  Parents, 
can  you  not  see,  will  you  not  see,  this  ruin  inflicted 
on  your  own  flesh  and  blood !  The  corrupt  atmo- 
sphere of  their  associates,  the  awful  things  they 
hear,  the  temptations  that  come  to  them,  the  sug- 
gestion of  the  immoral  and  the  low,  where  are  they 
drifting.     This  is  not  sentiment,  it  is  truth. 

Another  thing.  The  boy  laborer  is  taught  too 
soon  to  strive  for  personal  success  and  personal 
triumph,  which  is  a  form  of  heartless  selfishness 
that  brings  injury  and  injustice  to  others.  He 
does  not  see  the  value  of  character  development 
and  of  human  brotherhood. 


CHILD  LABOR  188 

Sometimes  they  come  to  think  society  their  nat- 
ural enemy,  and  because  it  is  stronger  than  they 
are  is  therefore  to  be  shimned  and  escaped.  He 
makes  a  Pariah  of  himself.  That  boy  needs  the 
honest  touch  of  human  fellowship  and  the  guidance 
of  a  wise  and  holy  hand.  He  should  not  become 
a  derelict  for  the  want  of  attention  and  friends. 
Out  of  such  come  the  outcasts,  the  skum,  and  the 
recidivists.     God  save  the  boys.     They  make  men. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

There  are  not  only  false  sentiments  of  life  and 
religion  and  politics  that  lead  astray,  but  also 
false  theories  of  philosophy  and  business  and  aims 
that  inoculate  the  life  of  a  man  and  spoil  his  use- 
fulness. They  are  the  results  of  environment  and 
disposition,  are  finite  conclusions  that  produce 
their  consequent  erroneous  attitude  toward  exist- 
ing conditions,  are  bad  thinking  that  cause  bad 
conduct  and  affect  manhood  and  citizenship. 

Travelers,  not  from  Altruria,  but  from  abroad, 
have  written  some  true  criticisms  of  the  American 
spirit  and  some  partial  ones.  Nothing  human  is 
perfect,  and  therefore  has  its  critics.  For  one 
thing  it  is  different  from  the  Old  World  ideals  and 
policies  and  methods,  and  one  coming  out  of  dif- 
ferent surroundings  may  see  something  to  tell  us 
for  our  good  and  he  may  be  so  overwhelmed  at  its 
newness  that  he  can  see  only  what  impresses  his 
mental  organization  most. 

IS  IT  IDEAMSM   OR  MATERIALISM 

Professor  G.  Ferrero,  the  keen-sighted  Italian, 
thinks  that  idealism,  not  materialism,  is  a  note  of 
the  American  life  of  the  present  period, — less  of 
the  utilitarian  and  practical  spirit  than  is  sup- 
posed by  the  Old  World.  He  thought  America 
"one  of  the  most  mystical  countries  of  our  epoch." 
And  he  could  not  fail  to  see  the  "erroneous  activity 
134 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  135 

that  spent  fabulous  sums  on  behalf  of  chimerical 
ideals."  But  he  said  this  of  the  rich,  not  of  the 
masses.  Others  have  seen  but  a  short  epoch  for 
the  phenomenal  spirit  that  actuates  the  American 
commercial  and  social  life. 

In  a  remarkable  speech  recently  Sir  Thomas 
Dewar,  an  English  knight,  said  in  a  toast,  that  the 
United  States  is  "the  greatest  republic  the  world 
has  ever  seen,  and  the  greatest  empire  the  world 
has  ever  seen.  The  most  sanguine  dreams  could 
not  have  foretold  what  a  stern  and  solemn  fact 
is  the  position  of  the  great  republic  which  we  see 
to-day,  and  no  man  can  prophesy  the  effect  of  an- 
other generation  of  evolution  and  progress.  The 
unbounded  enterprise  and  enthusiasm  and  energy 
of  the  American  citizen  have  already  staggered 
the  world  in  the  development  of  the  unlimited  re- 
sources of  the  unbounded  richness  of  that  im- 
mense country.  Education  begins  after  you  have 
left  school,  and  in  my  visits  to  that  country  every 
two  years  my  astonishment  is  stirred  within  me 
at  the  enormous  advance  it  is  making. 
Their  democratic  ways  are  such  that  every  citizen 
seems  to  work  for  the  welfare  of  the  state,  and 
the  first  and  foremost  ambition  is  'our  country, 
our  whole  country,  and  nothing  but  our  country,' 
governed  by  one  who  has  risen  from  the  people 
and  administered  by  constitutional  freedom.  Coun- 
tries of  the  past  have  gone  by  steps  and  starts, 
but  the  progress  of  the  United  States  has  been 
one  triumphant  rush  into  prosperity,  which  every 


186  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

one  must  admit  and  admire,  and  the  consensus  of 
all  that  is  represented  by  the  White  House  and 
the  wide  selection  of  the  state  in  the  all-powerful 
president  taking  his  position  among  the  countries 
of  the  world." 

The  converse  of  this,  as  it  might  seem,  but 
which  in  fact  is  an  endorsement  of  it,  is  the  opin- 
ion of  a  German  judge.  He  declares  that  "Amer- 
ica is  a  peril  not  only  for  England  and  Germany, 
but  for  all  Europe,  to  which  the  yellow  peril  is  al- 
together secondary.  Our  imperial  cousins  in 
America  are  the  greater  danger.  As  the  dollar  is 
bigger,  it  will  annihilate  the  shilling  and  the  mark, 
unless  Europe  sets  up  its  own  Monroe  doctrine, 
'Europe  for  Europeans.' "  It  was  his  opinion 
that  eventually  all  Europe,  including  England, 
must  combine  in  an  economic  alliance,  or  otherwise 
America  will  conquer  the  world  in  an  economic 
struggle  and  exhaust  Europe.  He  was  for  trade 
dominion  for  Europe  against  their  dangerous  rival, 
America,  who  was  likely  to  gain  the  trade  dom- 
ination of  the  world.  The  world  is  beginning  to 
dread  the  mighty  magic  growth  of  the  United 
States,  its  restlessness  and  strength,  its  physical 
and  mental  forces. 

ALARM  AT  OUR  PUBLIC  DEBT 

Friends  within  our  own  border  express  alarm 
at  our  rapid  increase  in  the  public  debt,  national, 
state,  county  and  municipal.  It  is  true  we  are 
living  in  an  age  of  world-wide  financial  delirium. 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  137 

and  we  have  become  extravagant,  scarcely  desir- 
ing economy.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  Spanish- 
American  war  and  the  inception  of  the  Panama 
canal  work,  the  public  debt  decreased,  but  since 
then  it  has  increased.  This  is  due  to  the  new 
American  spirit.  It  has  been  concealed  under  the 
polite  fiction  of  "certificates  of  indebtedness"  to 
cover  treasury  deficits.  Taking  no  account  of  the 
debts  of  countries,  municipalities  and  school  dis- 
tricts, the  aggregate  debt  of  all  the  states  and  ter- 
ritories, less  sinking  fund  assets,  in  1880  was 
$274,745,772;  in  1890  it  was  $211,210,487,  and 
twelve  years  later,  in  1902,  it  was  $234,908,873. 
For  the  ten-year  period  the  decrease  was  23.1  per 
cent.,  and  the  increase  for  the  twelve-year  period 
was  11.2  per  cent.  As  a  result  of  this  increase, 
one  economist  asserts  that  the  price  of  foodstuffs 
is  from  10  to  70  per  cent,  more  than  ten  years 
ago.  The  ordinary  expenses  of  the  government 
between  the  years  1890  and  1898  increased  more 
than  121  per  cent.,  and  between  1898  and  1909 
increased  more  than  201  per  cent.  Now,  it  ap- 
pears that  public  opinion  takes  no  interest  in  na- 
tional economy,  and  encourages  the  hand  to  dip 
any  length  in  the  public  treasury  for  an  appropri- 
ation for  local  interests.  It  would  be  well,  in  order 
to  save  the  public  moneys,  to  place  the  public  ex- 
penditures in  the  care  of  a  board  who  would  see 
that  all  expenses  were  made  on  a  purely  business 
basis.  All  measures  should  be  taken  to  guard 
against  a  waste  of  the  public's  money ;  there  should 


188  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

be  a  conservation  of  the  national  capital.  The 
immense  increase  in  the  wealth  of  the  world  has 
developed  a  sentiment  that  the  supply  of  capital 
is  inexhaustible,  and  it  has  stimulated  the  spirit 
of  mankind  and  diverted  wealth  from  productive 
to  unproductive  uses.  These  national  financial 
facts  aifect  the  state  of  the  future  citizen. 

IS  THE  DAY  OF  PAETY  BOSSES  PAST 

The  government,  it  is  plain,  is  less  responsible 
for  our  legislative  and  financial  sins  than  party 
bosses.  It  is  predicted  that  the  American  public 
will  soon  see  and  grow  tired  of  party  rule,  and 
in  their  awakening  will  overthrow  party  domina- 
tion and  choose  men  to  public  office  on  their  per- 
sonal merit, — ^the  office  seek  the  man.  Boss  rule 
should  end,  no  doubt,  for  the  results  are  not  satis- 
factory. But  the  old  always  dies  hard.  There 
is  no  doubt  but  boss  rule  in  politics  affects  the 
public  sense  of  honor,  and  in  so  far  licenses  greed 
and  graft.  It  is  in  a  degree  qualifying  the  future 
citizen  to  understand  less  the  moral  obliquities  of 
peculation  and  the  reproach  that  should  attach 
to  one  who  fails  in  doing  what  honor  commands 
him  to  do. 

WHIMS  OF  POPULAR  CLAMOR 

Excellent  as  is  the  work  of  the  press,  and  great 
as  is  the  part  it  is  doing  for  the  American  citizen, 
it  is  regrettable  that  it  has  the  fault  of  "giving 
the  public  what  it  wants."    In  doing  this  the  press 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  139 

subjects  itself  to  the  accusation  of  catering  to  the 
whims  of  popular  clamor.  The  public  should  be 
led,  not  followed,  if  the  best  good  is  to  be  derived 
from  the  attitude  and  influence  of  a  press  in  form- 
ing the  uneducated  public.  This  great  medium 
of  information  has  grown  opinionless,  or  else  it 
merely  gives  a  few  boneless  ideas,  under  the  eye 
of  policy  or  the  fear  of  financial  injury.  Men 
competent  to  form  conclusions  are  lamenting  that 
the  press,  the  daily  press,  is  in  the  business  for  the 
money  there  is  in  it, — dominated  by  commercial- 
ism,— and  they  are  making  a  plea  for  cleaner, 
more  fearless,  more  honest  journalism.  The  criti- 
cism is  not  directed  at  its  literary  character,  but 
at  its  truculent  spirit.  It  has  ceased  to  be  a 
"moulder  of  public  opinion,"  in  the  highest  sense, 
and  is  putty  in  the  hands  of  its  commercial 
master.  No  one  is  more  conscious  of  this 
serious  fact  than  the  brainy  men  themselves 
directing  the  concern.  They  dislike  the  attitude 
of  being  a  beggar  at  the  door  of  patronage,  a  thing 
for  charity  from  the  advertising  world,  a  thing 
that  can  be  bribed  to  silence  for  money.  In  the 
"stony  stare"  of  business  its  independence  van- 
ishes, and  for  this  reason  it  has  lost  its  fearless 
independence  and  its  former  high  caste.  It  has 
become  simply  a  "reflector"  of  what  the  public 
does  and  thinks.  Its  yellow  streak  is  borrowed 
from  the  public.  Hence  historians  will  seek  its 
columns,  not  for  great  ideas,  but  for  its  reflection 
of  the  public  spirit  of  the  hour,  which  is  chiefly 


140  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

a  burden  of  human  frailties  rather  than  of  human 
excellences.  The  best  men  of  the  press  are  saying 
to  themselves  the  lamentation  of  Cardinal  Wolsey. 
It  would  be  manifestly  unfair  to  say  it  has  no  ex- 
cellences, that  it  is  hopelessly  bad,  or  that  the  pen- 
dulum will  not  swing  back  again  in  no  far-off 
future.  All  will  admit,  and  newspaper  men  them- 
selves the  first,  that  it  is  not  now  at  its  best.  A 
press  that  sets  class  against  class,  or  that  gives 
in  its  news  columns  methods  of  crime  to  the  young, 
or  that  suppresses  or  perverts  facts  for  money 
or  for  policy,  or  that  is  afraid  to  express  itself, 
or  that  caters  to  wealth,  is  in  no  sense  to  be  wholly 
approved.  The  press  of  that  character  is  not 
doing  its  best  to  form  superior  future  citizens. 
It  needs  no  prophetic  eye  to  see  what  will  result 
from  such  causes. 

AS   OTHERS  SEE   US 

Perhaps  the  novelist  was  nearly  correct  when 
he  made  an  Englishman  say  of  us  that  it  is  a  mis- 
take for  the  English  to  take  interest  in  us,  for  the 
reason  that  we  are  noisy,  without  real  confidence 
in  ourselves,  restless  and  merely  imitative  instead 
of  inventive.  This  was  not  meant  to  apply  in  a 
material  sense.  The  fact  is  that  this  great  Ameri- 
can people,  about  whom  so  many  travelers  write 
notes,  is  not  given  very  seriously  to  the  study  of 
the  great  questions  of  public  policy  and  the  intri- 
cate problems  of  administration  that  must  of 
necessity  arise  under  a  republican  form  of  govern- 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  141 

ment.  Into  the  very  blood  of  the  young  man 
shoald  be  instilled — 

"The  austere  virtues,  strong  to  save; 
The  honor,  proof  of  place  or  gold. 
The  manhood  never  bought  nor  sold'* — 

the  true  American  spirit.  Education  is  advancing 
at  the  cost  of  culture  and  refinement  and  good 
taste.  The  life  within  is  one  thing  and  the  flesh 
on  the  bones  is  another. 

GOVERNMENT  AFFECTS   CHARACTER 

The  people  controlled  by  imperialism  are  no 
happier  than  the  people  torn  by  anarchy.  The 
national  character  can  only  be  estimated  by  con- 
sidering the  whole  body  of  the  people,  in  all  their 
ingoings  and  outgoings.  In  view  of  the  astound- 
ing municipal  corruptions  that  have  come  to  light 
in  the  last  few  years,  it  is  not  far  amiss  to  say  that 
public  spirit  and  national  pride  are  at  a  low  ebb. 
Corruption  rots  public  enterprise  and  abuses  pub- 
lic morals  and  harms  private  character.  Incor- 
ruptible, fearless,  honest,  faithful  men  there  are, 
but  the  offices  are  filled  commonly  with  place  seek- 
ers, and  this  fact  is  not  good  evidence  of  a  fit  man 
for  the  place.  The  demands  of  administration 
grow,  but  human  capacities  and  facilities  remain 
unchanged,  and  opportunities  to  betray  the  inter- 
ests of  the  people  multiply  as  the  burdens  of  gov- 
ernment increase.  The  corruptions  of  the  hour 
will  not  always  continue,  we  have  the  faith  to  say. 


14a  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

The  allegation  is  made  that  the  government 
concerns  itself  more  with  the  material  things  of 
life,  than  with  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  fam- 
ily. This  is  true  in  part,  but  the  laws  enacted  by 
the  lawmakers  apply  to  the  protection  of  person 
and  family  and  property,  and  in  so  far  they  pro- 
mote peace  and  success  and  general  welfare.  In 
our  land  all  vital  governmental  principles  have 
their  basis  in  the  Bible,  and  for  this  all  respectable 
citizens  rejoice. 

THE    COMMERCIAL    SPIRIT 

The  dominant  note  in  this  age  is  business.  If 
business  demands  the  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of 
mammon  of  men,  and  even  friends,  then  the  sacri- 
fice is  made.  Everything  must  give  way  to  busi- 
ness. It  is  business,  not  friends  that  occupies  the 
mind  of  man  now.  Commercialism  is  competition, 
and  competition  is  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Com- 
mercialism is  pure  materialism  and  laughs  at  sen- 
timent and  all  the  poetic  beauties  of  the  past  that 
have  entered  into  and  helped  to  shape  men  into 
what  they  are.  And  the  position  of  the  church, 
that  "character-building  is  the  greatest  thing  in 
the  world,"  that  character  is  the  man,  is  looked 
upon  by  commercialism  as  the  idle  fancy  of  dream- 
ers. The  personal  element  is  eliminated  by  busi- 
ness. It  is  useless,  it  seems,  to  originate  phrases 
against  business,  for  "business  and  barbarism" 
are  unmoved  by  them.  The  utilitarian  idea  is  the 
atlas  of  modern  society.    There  are  no  more  Louis 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  143 

Agassizs  to  say  they  "have  no  time  to  make 
money."  It  is  true  money  has  its  place,  is  a  man's 
friend,  and  is  a  mighty  agent  for  good  if  rightly 
applied.  Riches  do  indeed  grant  privileges  that 
poverty  denies.  Often  social  poverty,  quantitative 
and  qualitative,  attends  the  exclusiveness  that 
wealth  imposes,  despite  the  supposed  benefits 
granted  by  its  possession. 

SOULLESS  BUSINESS 

Personal  touch  becomes  less  and  less  possible 
as  a  business  concern  or  corporation  increases  its 
output  and  adds  to  the  number  of  its  laboring 
force.  One  who  in  private  life  would  despise  snob- 
bishness and  servility,  in  business  or  politics  will 
cringe  to  the  stronger  for  the  sake  of  his  personal 
advantage.  Both  business  and  politics  will  un- 
man him.  And  then,  too,  we  come  to  hate  the  suc- 
cessful man,  for  no  reason  than  that  he  is  suc- 
cessful. Business  hardens,  intensifies  the  forces 
in  a  man  that  are  exercised  for  the  accumulation 
of  wealth,  and  smothers  out  his  sense  of  human 
sympathy  and  helpfulness.  It  gives  rise  to  the 
classification  of  the  poor  and  the  rich,  and  causes 
class  hatred.  It  is  material  in  its  aims,  and  height- 
ens a  disregard  for  the  interests  of  others.  It  is 
selfish ;  it  is  unkind. 

Our  eternal  happiness,  or  our  everlasting  misery 
develop  around  the  smallest  word  in  the  English 
language, — the  pronoun  I.  Corporations,  soul- 
less, use  the  corporate  We.    Perhaps  it  is  unpalat- 


144  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

able  to  say  that  both  church  and  college  classes 
are  as  conscienceless  as  the  laboring  class,  or  the 
corporate  class.  The  development  of  the  class 
through  soulless  business  is  one  of  the  central  dan- 
gers of  the  day.  Classes  cannot  exist  together  in 
peace.  Manifestly  human'  intellectual  force  is 
drifting  toward  what  is  corporate,  collected,  cen- 
tralized, to  the  threatened  submergence  of  the  per- 
sonal "I  myself."  In  his  address  in  Paris,  Colonel 
Roosevelt  advised  the  cultivation  of  what  he  called 
"the  commonplace,  every-day  qualities  and  vir- 
tues." He  said  "every  one  of  us  needs  a  helping 
hand  now  and  then."  In  his  speech  in  Berlin  a 
little  afterward  he  said:  "When  men  get  too  com- 
fortable and  lead  too  luxurious  lives,  there  is  al- 
ways danger  lest  the  softness  eat  like  an  acid  into 
their  manliness  of  fiber." 

IS    THERE    A    REMEDY 

A  man  cannot  dissociate  his  morals  and  his  busi- 
ness, whatever  he  may  say  to  soothe  his  conscience, 
for  he  can't  escape  the  effects  of  his  life  lived  nor 
the  results  of  his  thinking.  What  does  this  atti- 
tude of  mind  and  heart  mean.'^  For  one  thing  it 
is  materializing  man,  and  the  future  citizen  will 
start  where  the  present  one  leaves  off  and  go  on 
and  bring  disaster  on  the  finer  human  excellence, 
cheapening  and  coarsening  themselves. 

The  economic  interpretation  of  history  com- 
pletely satisfies  the  man  "whose  God  is  the  belly," 
and  who  has  never  learned  that  "man  shall  not  live 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  145 

by  bread  alone."  The  Great  Teacher  said:  "Be 
not  anxious  for  your  life,  what  ye  shall  eat,  or 
what  ye  shall  drink;  nor  yet  for  the  body,  what 
ye  shall  put  on.  Is  not  the  life  more  than  the  food, 
and  the  body  than  the  raiment?"  This  philosophy 
is  correct.  Morals  and  ethics  have  had  much  to 
do  with  the  rise  and  fall  of  nations.  No  economic 
system  or  code  of  laws  can  save  a  nation  whose 
people  do  not  think  and  live  aright.  It  is  not  to 
be  disputed  that  we  as  a  people  are  making  prog- 
ress and  that  we  are  not  drifting  wholly  to  the  bad. 
No  human  economic  system  can  escape  the  limita- 
tions of  finite  conception,  and  hence  no  system 
of  sociology  can  supplant  the  divine  plan  of  human 
life; — ^humility,  helpfulness,  sacrifice,  love.  As 
we  live,  we  die. 

"Through  poverty  many  have  sinned;  and  he 
that  seeketh  to  be  enriched,  turneth  away  his  eye. 
As  a  stake  sticketh  fast  in  the  midst  of  the  joining 
of  stones,  so  also  in  the  midst  of  buying  and  sell- 
ing, sin  shall  stick  fast."  Ecclesiasticus  27:1,2. 


CHAPTER  XV 
SOCIALISM 

One  of  the  coming  problems  is  socialism,  and 
already  its  leavening  power  is  seen  in  the  increas- 
ing converts  to  its  doctrines.  Its  insidious  effect 
upon  the  young,  soon  to  be  the  future  citizens,  is 
scarcely  commensurable  at  present.  It  has  bobbed 
up  as  one  of  the  interminable  topics,  and  it  is  not 
needful  to  enter  at  length  upon  it  here.  A  few 
condensed  statements  will  suffice. 

Putting  aside  mincing  words,  considered  in  its 
entirety  it  is  little  more  than  an  unwarranted 
theory  exploited  till  it  has  come  to  be  believed  in 
by  the  exploiters  themselves  and  by  others  to  whom 
any  "change"  would  be  acceptable.  It  is  true  the 
trend  of  thought  now  among  the  common  people 
is  toward  socialism,  due  to  the  propagandism  of 
this  political  cult,  and  the  want  of  time  and 
thought  to  investigate  by  the  new  adherents.  Some- 
how they  take  it  to  mean  a  "division  of  the  spoils" 
or  property,  and  to  them  the  division  would  be  a 
momentary  but  illusory  blessing.  An  imprac- 
ticable, delusive  phase  of  this  theory  lies  in  its  en- 
tire freedom  from  the  limitations  of  reality  and 
experience,  being  supported  by  no  precedents  of 
history,  legislation,  nation-building.  All  their 
writing  has  the  color  of  idealism,  the  argument 
of  the  speculative.  It  claims  to  be  a  system  of 
self-help  for  each  and  every  one;  aims  to  over- 
146 


SOCIALISM  147 

throw  the  present  system  of  commercialism  and 
capitalism,  of  the  markets,  of  the  wage  system, 
of  competition,  of  individualism;  and  in  fact  it 
might  also  claim  that  it  is  a  displacement  of  the 
need  for  prayer  and  faith  in  the  Divinity.  En- 
thusiasts assert  it  is  coming  and  will  prevail;  but 
if  it  should,  in  the  destiny  of  all  finite  things  it  will 
go  again  for  something  else, — for  restless,  finite 
man  produces  nothing  perfect. 
'% 

A    THREAT 

In  any  true  analysis  of  the  motive  for  advocat- 
ing such  a  theory,  it  is  seen  that  it  is  a  threat  by 
disgruntles  and  by  exploiters  of  self  striking  at 
moneyed  interests.  Thus  it  operates  as  a 
check  on  the  present  ways  of  social  institutions, 
a  break  on  individual  progress,  a  counter-irritant 
for  the  present  national  government.  It  is  a  com- 
pulsory system,  requiring  all  private  property  to 
be  sequestered  to  the  state,  and  rendering  it  impos- 
sible for  any  one  to  possess  anything,  except  may- 
be in  a  most  niggardly  and  restricted  sense.  Busi- 
ness fears  the  destructive  ism.  It  is  not  a  Utopia, 
and  far  short  of  a  millennium.  It  professes  to 
have  no  bosses,  but  in  rerum  natura  it  uses  the 
word  we.  They  propose  to  squelch  large  corpora- 
tions by  a  tax  that  will  amount  to  confiscation 
eventually, — a  sort  of  legal  pillaging  in  the  name 
and  interest  of  the  state, — and  give  employment 
to  the  unwillingly  idle.  And  this  sort  of  thing 
they  misbrand  "a  little  step  toward  a  higher  phase 


148  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

of  civilization."  (Not  all  changes  are  reforms, 
be  it  understood,  nor  all  so-called  reforms  wise.) 
Hence,  this  attitude  defined  means  that  its  advo- 
cates in  their  thriftlessness  are  begging  paupers, 
combining  for  power  and  for  the  overthrow  of  the 
present  conditions  that  induce  individual  thrifti- 
ness  and  discourage  shiftlessness.  The  seed  of 
discontent  planted  by  this  selfish  system  will  never 
be  removed  by  their  own  theory  of  government. 
One  born  with  a  certain  character,  no  government 
can  recreate  it. 

ITS   AIMS 

This  plan  of  universal  ownership  by  a  govern- 
ment trust  denies  the  right  of  private  ownership 
and  "predatory  wealth"  (a  phrase  that  sounds 
sweet  and  picturesque  to  them),  and  rejects  all 
private  concentration  of  whatever  kind.  Denying 
concentration,  yet  in  fact  building  up  one  of  the 
most  stupendous  trusts  the  mind  of  man  can  con- 
ceive of — government  ownership  and  government 
trust.  The  promoters  of  this  thing  have  toned 
down  its  original  destructive  tendencies  into  terms 
of  mildness  without  altering  its  spirit, — a  suppres- 
sion of  its  dangerous  tendencies  to  present  needs. 
It  now  speaks  of  its  initiative  steps,  for  policy's 
sake. 

The  idea  of  collectivism  for  individualism,  as  a 
corrector  of  all  human  ills  (ills  that  must  neces- 
sarily exist  according  to  the  law  of  compensa- 
tion), is  not  up  to  the  claims  made  for  it.  The 
regulation  of  the  output  of  production  and  of  dis- 


SOCIALISM  149 

tribution  tends  to  degrade  and  deteriorate  human 
character  and  diminish  human  efforts.  A  co-op- 
erative commonwealth  is  visionary,  impracticable. 
To  secure  power  and  concentrated  effort  these 
theorists  place  the  emphasis  upon  the  ballot  and 
less  upon  anarchistic  force,  a  thing  held  in  reserve. 
History  records  the  failure  of  all  entirely  co-op- 
erative plans  ever  attempted.  The  theory  is  that 
socialism  will  institute,  willy-nilly,  hedonism.  No 
— not  while  men  are  men  and  God's  plan  of  duality 
prevails.  A  man  can  as  easily  run  away  from 
himself,  leave  his  frame  of  mind  behind  by  travel- 
ing over  the  world,  as  be  supremely  happy  in  his 
present  form  of  ego,  of  self-centered  human  na- 
ture. It  is  a  fundamental  fact  that  man  is  a  com- 
plex being,  and  has  both  a  self  and  a  non-self  side. 
To  attain  the  best,  these  elements  must  have  an 
even  balance  and  harmony,  or  disaster  will  follow. 
In  a  sociologic  sense  these  dual  elements  are  con- 
centration and  individualism,  two  unchangable 
elements.  Every  sane  man  is  a  responsible  agent 
first,  but  the  visions  of  the  socialists  would  make 
him  an  automaton,  the  instrument  of  an  outside 
will.  It  is  a  common  truism  that  man  is  respon- 
sible to  himself  and  to  society.  This  he  can't  be 
as  the  agent  of  an  organization,  the  puppet  of  a 
superior  external  interest. 

GENERAL    EFFECT    OF    SOCIALISM 

Now,    robbery   has    existed    since   the   time    of 
Achan,  and  perhaps  in  one  way  or  another  always 


150  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

will  exist.  Peculation  and  taxes  in  some  form  go 
on.  Socialism  is  but  legalized  robbery  of  the 
riches  of  individual  effort,  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
sipating it  like  a  prodigal  to  all.  When  all  is  dis- 
tributed then — the  deluge.  It  takes,  all  told  and 
last  told,  very  fluent  definitions,  but  it  means  after 
all,  a  general  levelling  somehow,  a  professed  equal- 
ity of  material  welfare,  ignoring  the  moral  and 
mental  best  good  of  all.  It  professes  to  bequeath 
the  best  good  through  equality  and  general  level- 
ing. As  before  said  it  has  been  found  imprac- 
ticable under  every  condition  and  test  ever  tried, 
and  doesn't  accord  with  the  wishes  and  nature  of 
people  in  mass  association,  for  individuality  can- 
not be  suppressed.  It  is  still  a  fundamental  ele- 
ment of  man.  It  seems  not  to  be  far  from  the  truth 
to  say  that  socialism,  in  the  first  instance,  is  a 
birth  of  hysterical  discontent, — a  neurotic  phil- 
osophy. It  is  a  contradiction  of  itself,  for  its  sole 
purpose  is  the  gaining  of  more  money  and  store 
for  the  individual,  which  it  disclaims  concern  for 
in  its  philanthropic  efforts  for  the  conscienceless 
mass  as  a  unit.  It  is  against  opportunism,  legal- 
ism, individualism,  and  is  mass  centralism.  Now, 
life  itself  is  a  question  of  temperament,  of  temper, 
of  disposition,  of  quality  of  spirit,  not  of  place 
or  locality  or  condition.  So  this  well-padded 
theory  is  wrong  and  needless.  One  of  its  fine- 
spun issues  is  that  the  competitive  system  causes 
poverty,  which  it  proposes  to  abolish,  as  well  as 
to  obviate  the  need  of  labor. 


SOCIALISM  151 

A  GIGANTIC   TEUST 

The  one  primary  aim  of  socialism,  as  it  is 
taught  to-day  (it  may  be  different  to-morrow),  is 
government  ownership  of  public  utilities,  of  all 
means  of  production, — a  trust  of  stupendous  mag- 
nitude, the  full  scope  of  which  is  not  seen  by  its 
advocates,  however  assertive  they  may  be  in  their 
views  of  it.  It  professes  that  government  owner- 
ship is  the  only  possible  way  to  have  the  co-opera- 
tive system  in  its  best  effects.  If,  as  these  politi- 
cal doctrinaires  define  it,  "a  trust  is  a  predatory 
system,  a  receiver  of  stolen  goods,"  what  then 
must  their  planned  remedy  be.''  We  see  that  after 
all,  this  system  is  but  a  form  of  governmental  re- 
lief, instead  of  an  effort  at  the  reformation  of  the 
man. 

Now,  no  law  is  sane  that  is  founded  on  suspicion. 
And  this  system  lays  all  sorts  of  claims  on  the 
assumption  that  present  conditions  are  all  wrong, 
— ^a  sort  of  wholesale  denunciation  of  things  that 
don't  accord  with  itself.  It  is  itself  the  outcome 
of  the  liberty  it  would  destroy,  and  the  possibility 
of  the  human  personal  endeavor  stimulated  by 
personal  ownership  which  it  would  suppress, — a 
sort  of  political  suicide.  It  repudiates  the  com- 
petitive system,  a  stimulus  to  individual  effort,  on 
the  ground  that  it  is  strife  and  makes  trusts  and 
investments  possible  and  gives  employment  to  men 
by  the  wage  system.  The  claim  is  that  it  would 
give  a  better  distribution  of  wealth,  omitting  to 
outline    a   better    means    for    the    distribution  of 


152  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

energy  and  personal  effort.  Indeed  it  is  a  taxa- 
tion upon  and  punishment  of  personal  energy  and 
responsibility,  and  a  substitution  of  mass  energy 
and  responsibility.  It  offers  no  inducements  to 
personal  skill  and  fails  to  regard  the  divergencies 
of  personality.  It  would  make  law  supreme  and 
interrupt  Providence  in  its  manifestation  through 
man's  make-up;  violate  the  privilege  of  contract 
and  coerce  men  to  mass  interests. 

EQUALITY 

Since  the  well-organized  propagandism  for  the 
distribution  of  socialistic  literature,  it  is  needless 
to  define  the  materialistic  phase  of  the  system, 
which,  in  general  terms,  means  equality  of  distri- 
bution of  the  material  things  of  life,  equality  of 
"chance,"  of  choice,  of  results,  of  nature's  oppor- 
tunities ;  omitting  equality  of  personal  powers,  of 
effort,  of  production,  of  physical  and  mental  ca- 
pabilities, of  religion,  of  energies,  of  birth  force, 
of  talents,  of  labor;  coercing  the  shrewd  personal 
individuality  to  the  level  of  incompetents  and  de- 
fectives and  lazy;  denying  him  the  right  of  exer- 
cise of  his  God-given  abilities,  and  making  him 
a  cog  in  a  machine;  lowering  his  privileges  and 
opportunities,  his  rights  divine  to  the  level  of  mass 
rights  and  thoughts,  and  levelling  life  to  a  material 
plane.  But  the  law  of  heredity  is  averse  to  equal- 
ity, to  dead  levels,  to  Procrustean  parallelisms  or 
correspondence,  and  ignores  equality  of  minds  and 
hearts  and  personal  forces  and  statures  and  color 


SOCIALISM  153 

of  eyes.  The  inequality  of  the  division  of  things 
as  they  are  now  is  more  an  evidence  of  the  inequal- 
ity of  personal  powers  than  of  errors  in  the  condi- 
tions of  men  and  the  distribution  of  wealth  and 
products.  The  demand  for  the  equal  distribution 
of  material  things  omits  to  consider  the  equality 
of  effort  and  of  production. 

A   DIVISION    OF   SAVINGS 

The  whole  scheme  seems  to  see  no  further  than 
a  "divy"  of  savings.  One  laborer  saved  a  remnant 
of  his  earnings,  leaving  off  some  of  the  enjoy- 
ments that  another  laborer  got  by  spending  all  his 
wages.  Both  received  equal  wages, — ^that  far  cor- 
responding with  the  socialistic  view.  But  while 
the  incomes  were  equal,  the  enjoyments  were  not 
equal  because  the  expenditures  were  unequal  and 
the  character  for  enjoyments  were  unequal.  And 
now  ignoring  the  fact  that  the  spendthrift  had  the 
enjoyments  that  the  economizer  had  not, — ignor- 
ing this  inequality  and  making  no  provision  for 
remedying  the  injustice, — they  say  he  is  a  robber, 
or  he  would  have  no  more  than  they  do,  and  de- 
mand, without  justice  or  reason,  a  share  of  his  sav- 
ings. They  spent  their  own  earnings,  and  now 
they  want  to  spend  a  part  of  the  other  man's ;  want 
a  division  again  for  more  enjoyment.  They  are 
not  willing  themselves  to  divide  with  the  other 
either  wages  or  enjoyments. 

Now  equality,  in  any  material  sense,  is  inequal- 
ity, in  this :  It  gives  to  one  who  doesn't  deserve  it. 


164  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

or  can't  earn  it,  an  equal  share  with  every  other 
one,  rewarding  the  lazy  and  the  drunkard  and  the 
one  with  bad  habits,  and  robbing  the  deserving, 
energetic,  leaving  him  only  an  equal  remainder. 
The  active  one  gets  only  an  average  individual 
part,  based  on  mass  effort.  There  is  no  estimate 
made  of  worth,  energy,  force,  skill, — only  on  units 
in  a  mass, — a  more  soulless  method  than  that  of 
any  corporate  concern.  The  fundamental  contra- 
diction between  equality  of  possessions  and  equal- 
ity of  capacity  will  always  remain. 

More  social  equality  demands  more  individual 
equality,  not  more  purse  equality.  And  legal 
equality,  unfortunately  maybe,  cannot  compensate 
for  physiological  and  psychological  inequality. 
Variety,  not  equality,  is  indeed  written  in  all  nature 
by  the  Creator.  The  restlessness  and  strenuous- 
ness  of  this  age,  planning  laws  and  formulas  to 
bring  about  equality  (of  what.?)  will  not  precipi- 
tate the  millennium  upon  an  unsuspecting  public. 
The  scheme  seems  to  be  an  appeal  to  government 
and  environment  to  correct  the  moral  and  mental 
and  physical  and  health  inequalities.  The  hard- 
ships imposed  by  the  Edenic  curse  cannot  be  re- 
moved, for  God  is  unalterable. 

There  should  be  no  rule  by  groups,  or  by  bosses, 
or  by  men  of  false  ideas.  This  political  scheme 
is  an  issue  respecting  the  institution  of 

PRIVATE  PROPEETY 

It  is  a  denial  of  the  prescriptive  and  legal  right 


SOCIALISM  165 

to  property,  a  menace  to  vested  interests.  The 
right  to  property  is  the  right  to  life,  for  when 
living  is  delegated  to  superior  state  interests  there 
is  no  bond  of  guarantee  that  it  will  be  forthcom- 
ing. Hence,  the  right  of  man  to  private  owner- 
ship of  property  is  a  natural  right  founded  on  the 
laws  of  nature.  Necessity,  as  per  Blackstone  for 
one,  begets  man's  claim  to  personal  ownership,  and 
the  state  should  second  nature  and  protect  this 
claim  from  infringement.  For  man's  existence  is 
anterior  to  state,  which  is  but  his  creature.  Hence, 
it  can  create  no  rights,  only  define  them.  Destroy 
the  right  of  personal  diligence,  and  stagnation  en- 
sues. Toil  is  not  for  pleasure,  but  out  of  neces- 
sity. The  state  cannot  occupy  the  place  of  the 
father,  for  the  family  is  a  social  unit  that  precedes 
the  state.  No  ideal  system  of  affairs  can  induce 
men  to  toil  without  compensation.  The  abolition 
of  rent,  interest,  and  profit  cannot  obviate  the 
necessity  for  toil.  The  future  citizen  saturated 
with  such  sentiments  has  the  seed  of  revolution 
in  him. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
LABOR 

It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  labor  organiza- 
tions should  be  immune  and  exempt  from  criticism. 
They  are  also  human.  They  deserve  no  more  fa- 
vors, and  should  have  no  less,  than  any  other  class 
of  men.  The  assumption  that  any  human  plan 
can  remedy  all  ills  of  the  body  politic  and  bring 
universal  peace  is  too  broad,  and  at  once  invites 
suspicion. 

After  many  years  of  active  organization  discus- 
sion pro  and  con  has  presented  every  phase  of  the 
"labor  problem,"  and  the  effort  of  ambitious  labor 
to  gain  dominance  in  business  industries  and  dic- 
tatorial powers  in  governmental  affairs  has  failed 
utterly,  as  it  should.  Many  have  questioned  the 
competency  of  labor  to  do  what  it  had  aspired  and 
undertaken  to  do.  And  now  the  pendulum  is 
swinging  back,  and  the  "open  shop,"  the  policy 
of  the  counter  organizations  that  labor  provoked 
into  existence  for  self-defense,  is  advocated  as 
against  the  "closed  shop,"  the  policy  of  labor. 
Labor  has  had  its  triumphant  hour  of  supremacy, 
through  self-exploitation,  and  now  must  find  its 
proper  niche  in  the  affairs  of  men.  Opposing  or- 
ganizations of  employers  have  brought  labor 
unions  to  a  "sober  second  thought,"  much  to  the 
peace  of  business  and  the  comfort  of  the  innocent 
public. 

156 


LABOR  157 

WORK   AND    HAPPINESS 

Labor  is  an  evil,  or  God  would  not  have  im- 
posed it  on  man  as  a  punishment  for  his  trans- 
gression in  the  Garden  of  Eden.  Though  Ruskin 
believed  "God  intended  every  man  to  be  happy 
in  his  work,"  yet  his  idea  is  at  variance  with  man's 
sense  of  what  punishment  means, — an  evil  for  re- 
forming the  culprit  and  for  protecting  the  inno- 
cent. The  finite  Ruskin  said  a  man  would  be 
happy  in  his  work  if  he  was  fitted  for  it,  if  he  did 
not  do  much  of  it,  and  if  he  had  a  sense  of  success 
in  it.  Now  these  qualifications  will  give  but  a 
relative  degree  of  pleasure  in  work.  For  no  one 
likes  to  work  for  work's  sake.  The  fatigue  toxin 
is  not  a  cause  of  happiness,  except  in  a  reflective 
manner.  That  laziness  is  called  a  curable  malady 
by  the  medical  "experts,"  we  are  made  to  under- 
stand that  a  man  can  be  doctored  into  happiness 
by  curing  his  dislike  for  work.  Again,  strikes 
evince  a  dislike  for  work,  and  few  would  be  guilty 
of  working  if  necessity  did  not  force  it  upon 
them.  If  men  loved  to  work  there  would  be  no 
idlers,  and  therefore  not  enough  work  to  go 
round.  Strange  as  it  may  sound,  toilers  would 
have  to  be  forced  to  quit. 

Since  the  angry  Edenic  decree,  it  is  the  fate  of 
man  to  have  to  toil.  The  earth,  God's  gift  to 
man,  must  be  tilled  to  yield  a  crop.  Apostrophis- 
ing labor  a  writer  makes  it  say — 

"Those  who  enlist  in  my  ranks  shall  possess 
Fruits  of  my  golden  estate : 


158  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

An  of  the  millions  who  toil  I  will  bless ; 

They  shall  enjoy  who  create. 
Labor  shall  render  rewards  to  her  own, 

("'  After  God's  equable  plan;  i 

They  are  the  truest  nobiUty  knownA 
-   Who  render  service  to  man.  ^ 

Onward  and  upward  I  march  to  the  height ; 

There  are  my  standards  unfurled. 
Over  them  blazoned  this  legend  of  light : 
Labor  that  conquers  the  world." 

THE   LABOR  MOVEMENT 

The  labor  movement  is  an  agitation,  and  we  are 
not  aware  that  it  has  any  other  ground  for 
its  existence  than  utility  and  selfishness.  It  has 
never  been  told  us  that  labor  superseded  the 
church  in  teaching  morals  and  purity  to  the  peo- 
ple. As  a  movement  looking  after  material 
things,  it  claims  that  by  reflex  action  man  will  be 
benefited  socially  and  spiritually, — that  is,  the 
manual  laborer. 

The  activities  of  business  are  developing  a  cos- 
mopolitanism that  makes  men  restless,  unsettled, 
nervous.  Out  of  this  also  comes  aspiration  be- 
yond human  capacity,  which  necessarily  precipi- 
tates discontent  and  failure.  These  things  have 
place  among  the  causes  of  decline  in  men.  The 
poor  man  grows  hard  and  bitter  and  peevishly 
stubborn,  and  his  children  imbibe  his  spirit. 
Faith  goes  with  honorable  poverty,  ego  with 
haughty  riches.  It  has  been  often  said  that  no 
body  of  men  can  legislate  contentment  into  a  man 
or  selfishness  out  of  him. 


LABOR  169 

The  public  is  tired  of  the  empiricism  and  im- 
perialism of  labor  movements,  and  since  it  has 
dwindled  into  a  political  organization  for  selfish 
ends,  its  doom  is  sealed.  Labor  unions  are 
grouchers  and  teach  others  to  grouch  and  grow 
discontented  and  unhappy.  There  is  no  silver 
lining  to  their  cloud  of  anger  at  capital.  They 
are  unjustly  exercised  about  non-unionism  and 
are  rebellious  against  nature,  and  natural  con- 
ditions, and  the  God-curse  of  the  sweat  of  the  face. 
They  are  excessively  unhappy  because  there  is  a 
kingdom  of  starch  and  soap. 

TRUE  INWARDNESS  OF  THE  MOVEMENT 

Labor  unions,  in  a  way,  curse  the  character  of 
the  person,  who  surrenders  his  liberty  and  be- 
comes a  slave  of  them,  and  are  responsible  for 
much  of  the  discontent  and  corruption  of  the 
day.  They  are  in  the  first  place  antagonistic 
and  aggressive.  In  the  second  place  they  are  dis- 
criminating, classifying  men  as  union  and  non- 
union or  "scabs."  And  if  we  may  speak  analyt- 
ically and  not  antagonistically,  we  read  further 
that  the  labor  unions  want: — 

1.  Higher  wages   (and  hard  times). 

2.  Less  hours  of  labor  (and  better  opportu- 
nities for  something  else). 

3.  Equal  opportunities  for  all  (not  to  eat,  to 
be  sure,  but  to  work). 

4.  Power  to  compel  (not  to  be  compelled). 

5.  More  amusements  (less  concern  for  the 
general  welfare). 


160  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

6.  Less  individual  accumulations  (which 
would  seem  to  mean  fewer  opportunities  to  labor). 

7.  Better  conditions  (not  better  hearts). 

8.  Its  share  (not  better  service). 

9.  Co-operation  (not  social  uplift). 

10.     Union  domination   (not  better  men). 

In  re  injunctions  and  courts 

The  labor  element  holds  itself  in  very  readiness 
to  be  the  censor  in  ordinary  of  all  economic  con- 
ditions, to  reprobate  capital  and  kill  the  goose 
that  lays  the  golden  ^gg  without  being  able  to 
see  what  they  are  doing,  or  to  supply  another. 
With  unskilled  hesitation  they  charge  corruption 
on  law-makers  because  the  special  class  laws  they 
demand  are  not  put  upon  the  statute  books. 
They  aver  the  decision  of  courts  are  money-made, 
and  choose  to  consider  themselves  fearfully  in- 
jured if  court  decisions  are  averse  to  them. 
And  with  malignant  emphasis  they  talk  of  im- 
peaching courts,  and  otherwise  show  their  insub- 
ordination to  law.  Thus  they  are  not  without  a 
breath  of  suspicion  against  them  for  corrupting 
the  judgment  and  wisdom  of  youths,  not  as  Soc- 
rates did,  but  by  example  and  purposes.  Charges 
without  submitted  proof  are  flung  against  the 
highest  as  well  as  the  lowest  officials  of  the  coun- 
try, and  all  grades  between.  Especially  are  in- 
junction proceedings  denounced,  because  they  in- 
terrupt violence  to  private  property.  It  is  in 
truth  a  shame  that  any  property   holder  has  to 


LABOR  161 

appeal  to  courts  for  injunctions  to  restrain  labor 
leaders  from  murder  and  violence.  On  the  other 
hand  it  ought  not  to  require  Federal  injunctions 
to  lie  against  combinations  of  capital  to  prevent 
their  plundering  the  people.  Now,  no  man  or 
condition  is  cured  by  law,  though  this  idiotic  no- 
tion is  common  among  the  people.  The  cause  and 
cure  for  these  evils  lie  only  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people,  and  not  on  the  pages  of  the  statute  books. 
Until  labor  unions  were  made  responsible  to  law, 
violence  was  rampant  and  much  foolish,  fatuous 
sacrifice  of  property  made,  as  some  of  the  inglo- 
rious and  meaningless  strikes  attest.  And  when 
courts  instituted  proceedings  against  them,  the 
legal  decrees  were  called  "difficulties  and  hard- 
ships" placed  discriminatingly  upon  labor.  Then 
courts  were  insulted  and  their  proceedings  were 
called  government  by  injunction  and  centralized 
despotism,  and  the  end  of  the  liberty  of  the  "peo- 
pie"  (unions,  meaning)  had  come.  The  courts, 
as  they  said,  were  institutions  for  oppressing  the 
weak  to  favor  the  strong.  They  defied  the  courts, 
disregarded  their  mandates  in  contempt  of  au- 
thority and  law,  fell  into  the  hands  of  officers  and 
were  sent  to  jail  after  fair  trial,  and  then,  posing 
as  martyrs,  reproached  everything  that  had  for 
its  object  law  and  order.  They  were  neither  law 
abiding  nor  willing  to  submit  to  trial  for  their  of- 
fenses, yet  proclaiming  inconsistently  to  be  great 
devotees  of  law  and  peace.  They  likened  them- 
selves  to   Christ,  who  was   persecuted   for   right- 


162  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

eousness'  sake,  and  talked  loftily  of  the  Constitu- 
tion and  the  people  (unions,  meaning),  the  source 
of  law  and  power.  They  demanded  "freedom  of 
action,"  the  "right  of  boycott,"  primary  and  sec- 
ondary, the  right  to  proscribe  business  houses  by 
listing  them  as  "firms  they  did  not  patronize," 
and  if  judges  interposed  they  were  "despotic 
usurpers"  bribed  by  plutocrats.  Such  a  position 
naturally  gave  rise  to  the  conclusion  that  they 
favored  violence  and  rapine,  and  were  infected 
with  barbarism  and  savagery.  But,  the  law  is  not 
inimical  to  labor,  being  universal  in  its  applica- 
tion to  lawbreakers,  and  is  indeed  more  speedily 
applied  to  corporations  when  they  break  it,  for 
they  command  no  public  sympathy.  Courts  are 
not  infallible,  though  men  of  wisdom  and  the  most 
level-headed  judgment  sit  upon  the  bench.  In- 
junctions are  merely  court  orders  to  interdict  op- 
pression and  distraint  while  considering  the  mer- 
its of  the  case.  In  opposition  to  "property 
rights,"  the  cause  for  all  this  legal  activity  is  not 
far  to  seek. 

All  this  seems  to  be  rank  heresy  from  the  labor 
standpoint,  but  yet  its  truth  is  apparent. 

LABOR   BOYCOTT 

The  acme  of  foolishness  was  reached  when  a 
labor  union  in  St.  Louis  warned  President  Taft, 
April  26,  1910,  not  to  attend  a  baseball  game  in 
that  city,  because  the  St.  Louis  club  had  decided 
the  Cleveland  club  was  "unfair."     This  command 


LABOR  163 

to  the  President  bore  a  penalty  of  $5  for  viola- 
tion thereof.  The  right  to  do  this  came  through 
the  "honorary  membership"  thrust  upon  him  by 
some  union.  The  Cleveland  club  came  on  the 
expurgatorius  or  unfair  list  because  it  employed 
for  some  trifling  bit  of  work  non-union  men. 
There  is  no  justification  of  violence  or  a  boycott, 
that  is  un-American,  barbarous,  inhuman,  repul- 
sive. It  breeds  rancorous  bitterness  between  men 
and  arouses  murderous,  undying  hate.  It  de- 
stroys valuations,  property,  business,  and  dis- 
turbs the  innocent  but  afflicted  public.  It  is  an 
evil  and  that  continually  and  doesn't  comport 
with  that  greatest  of  all  commands,  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself,  and  bears  no  commendation 
in  it  of  the  party  employing  such  a  measure 
brought  down  from  man's  savage  state.  It  is  in 
utter  antagonism  of  the  principles  of  free  govern- 
ment and  the  spirit  of  our  forefathers  who  gave 
their  lives  that  we  might  have  civil  liberty  and 
protection  from  the  crimes  of  ignorance.  Those 
who  even  think  of  employing  it  only  advertise 
their  incompetency  to  manage  the  liberties  of  the 
people,  should  they  be  trusted  with  positions  of 
public  trust.  And  then  again,  why  should  labor 
strive  to  enforce  sympathy  and  compel  aid,  in- 
stead of  proceeding  in  the  manly  way  to  merit  and 
achieve  it! 

THE    POWERS   THAT   BE 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is  found  in 
Romans    13th,    where    obedience    "to    the    higher 


164  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

powers"  is  enjoined,  "for  there  is  no  power  but 
of  God."  Paul  observes  further  in  this  connec- 
tion that  rulers  are  no  terror  to  the  law-abiding, 
only  to  the  evil  doer.  All  rulers  are  ministers  of 
God  for  good  or  for  wrath.  The  error  lies  not  in 
the  ruler,  but  in  the  people,  whom  the  ruler  chas- 
tises at  God's  command.  When  writing  to  Titus 
(3:1)  Paul  presented  the  same  advice,  "to  be  in 
subjection  to  rulers,  to  authorities,  to  be  obedi- 
ent." Again  to  the  Hebrews  (13:17)  he  in- 
structed them  to  "obey  them  that  have  the  rule 
over  you,  and  submit  to  them."  James  (3:3) 
illustrated  the  same  idea  when  he  spoke  of  putting 
"horses'  bridles  into  their  mouths"  to  guide  them. 
Now  this  is  good  philosophy,  for  reformation  be- 
longs to  the  sinner  as  his  duty  to  himself,  and  not 
first  to  seek  to  reform  the  other  fellow.  Refor- 
mation, like  charity,  should  begin  at  home,  and 
like  the  obedience  of  Christ  to  the  authorities, 
even  to  death,  radiate  it  out  upon  others  by  ex- 
ample. Good  people  are  not  rebellious.  It  is 
useless  to  kick  against  the  pricks,  for  fate  is  of 
God.  On  the  other  hand  Moses  (Exodus  23:  1  to 
9)  tells  judges  not  to  oppress  any  one  unjustly. 

As  to  the  question  when  rebellion  is  permissible 
and  the  sufficiency  of  the  causes  for  it,  it  is  unset- 
tled. It  would  seem  that  the  modem  thought  is 
that  there  are  no  sufficient  causes  for  the  injured 
party  itself  to  determine  upon,  for  the  time  is  at 
hand  for  arbitration  by  some  permanent  interna- 
tional court. 


LABOR  166 

ABOLISH    POVERTY 

He  who  is  born  poor  will  die  poor,  is  a  saying. 
Moreover,  it  is  only  three  generations  from  shirt- 
sleeves to  shirtsleeves.  "For  the  poor  shall  never 
cease  out  of  the  land."  (Deuteronomy  15:11.) 
The  wearing  out  of  life  in  a  ceaseless  struggle  to 
"lay  up  for  the  children"  is  a  foolish  material- 
istic idea.  If  they  are  not  competent  to  earn  a 
living  and  solve  the  problem  of  life  somehow, 
they  deserve  to  die  the  death,  for  they  are  not 
worth  keeping  alive.  Your  riches  destroy  too  fre- 
quently your  child,  and  before  your  accumula- 
tions are  dissipated,  as  they  surely  will  be,  your 
own  flesh  and  blood  have  been  brought  to  pre- 
mature death,  mere  worthless  trash,  ruined  by 
luxury  and  riches.  Moreover,  no  one  is  bound 
to  work  for  another  to  spend  in  riotous  living. 
He  certainly  can  spend  his  earnings  more  dis- 
creetly than  one  who  has  never  earned  a  dollar 
and  therefore  knows  not  its  worth. 

Poverty  cannot  be  abolished,  any  more  than 
can  its  converse,  riches.  These  two  are  relative, 
and  will  always  remain,  under  the  law  of  oppo- 
sites.  Parents  of  paupers,  degenerates,  defectives 
and  criminals  must  first  be  removed,  or  disallowed 
to  produce  their  kind.  Society  ought  to  protect 
itself  from  those  who  ought  not  to  be  and  have 
no  good  reason  for  their  existence.  This  is  the 
race  suicide  that  should  be  indulged  in.  Society's 
obligation  to  the  underworld,  the  submerged 
tenth,  is  its  elimination,  for  it  can  never  be  any- 


166  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

thing  but  a  menace  to  itself  and  to  the  community. 
This  question  of  stirpiculture  and  eugenics  is 
tabooed  without  wisdom.  Stock  raising  all  are 
familiar  with,  but  the  propagation  of  the  human 
animal — a  human  soul — admits  of  no  investiga- 
tion! Yes,  we  are  our  brother's  keeper.  How- 
ever, as  long  as  men  are  imperfect,  and  that  will 
be  for  aye,  no  human  scheme  will  make  all  men 
good  and  happy. 

LABOR    DICTATION 

Labor  is  not  the  ordy  saving  element  of  society, 
nor  the  only  one  to  be  considered. 

Labor  is  a  tyranny. 

It  dogmatizes  over  its  slave  members. 

It  presumes  to  regulate  business  and  industry 
and  capital  under  penalty  of  deprivation  and  dis- 
tress. 

It  is  selfish.  It  is  not  on  the  broad  basis  of 
universal  brotherhood,  for  it  extrudes  the  rich, 
though  asserting  that  a  pain  to  one  is  a  pain  to 
all  alike.  It  is  not  a  philosophy  of  service  and 
sacrifice  and  manly  co-operation  and  counsel  with 
capital,  its  natural  master  and  minister. 

When  employers  and  property  owners  decide 
for  themselves  about  their  own  affairs  or  business, 
labor  interposes  with  a  "thou  shalt  not."  The 
question  of  authority  for  this  interposition  is  an- 
swered by  "it  is  the  ipso  jure  of  labor  itself." 
The  right  of  ownership  in  the  concern  is  brushed 
aside  as  with  a  wave  of  the  hand. 


LABOR  167 


REMOVE  THE  RICH 


Since  George's  idea  of  "Progress  and  Poverty" 
through  confiscation  of  rents  and  the  development 
of  the  "single  tax"  theory,  the  passing  of  the  idle 
rich  and  "predatory  wealth"  has  become  a  favor- 
ite theme  of  the  echoists.  The  removal  of  wealth 
would  be  a  curse  greater  than  the  evils  of  wealth. 
The  remedy  is  not  in  the  removal  of  riches,  but 
in  the  removal  of  the  poor  and  the  energyless  by 
better  men  and  women.  Jeremiads  against  the 
idle  "well-fed  drones"  are  from  "windjammers" 
who  know  not  the  first  letter  of  the  causes  of  hard- 
ships and  poverty.  The  call  to  action  in  life's 
work  is  to  every  one  alike,  but  not  all  to  follow 
the  same  pursuit.  Doubtless  the  divine  decree, 
"in  the  sweat  of  thy  face,"  has  no  exceptions. 
The  call  is  to  higher  manhood,  and  to  the  idleness 
of  devising  schemes  for  relieving  "man's  inhu- 
manity to  man."  These  smooth-tongued  artists 
of  disruption  and  disorder  would  learn  something 
of  God's  purpose  in  man  and  His  relation  to  him 
by  a  study  of  the  Old  Bible,  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting studies  of  human  social  relations  that  is  ex- 
tant in  the  world.  A  false  sense  prevails  and  is 
taught  about  liberty  and  peace  and  equal  division 
of  the  spoils.  He  who  loses  hope,  should  lose  it, 
and  doubtless  would  lose  it  under  any  conditions. 
There  is  no  hope  for  the  born  gloomy,  and  no 
remedy  for  him.  He  must  live  out  his  days  as  he 
is  and  die.  It  is  very  nonsense  to  talk  of  govern- 
mental  conditions   "driving"   men   and  women  to 


168  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

lower  stages  of  manhood  and  womanhood,  to 
drink,  to  crime,  to  moral  death.  Such  excuses  for 
one's  exercise  of  his  desires  and  impulses  are  no 
excuses  adequate.  It  is  not  intended  to  say  by  all 
this  that  a  weak  man  may  not  be  bolstered  up  by 
encouragement  and  moral  support,  but  it  is  in- 
tended to  say  that  all  the  conditions  in  the  world 
may  be  rejected  if  he  is  inclined  that  way.  The 
idiot  will  remain  the  idiot  still.  The  infamous 
careers  of  the  rich  man's  sons,  with  the  very  best 
conditions,  illustrate  the  point  fully.  Not  the  re- 
moval of  the  rich  so  much  as  the  removal  of  those 
elements  in  the  creature  that  militate  against  the 
highest  manhood. 

No  nation  is  stronger  than  its  citizens. 
America  has  every  power  now,  and  that  may  mean 
weakness  and  possible  decline. 


CHAPTER   XVII 
CITIES  A  PROBLEM 

City  governments  in  the  United  States  have 
been  honeycombed  by  grafters,  as  witness  San 
Francisco,  Philadelphia,  St.  Paul,  Pittsburg,  and 
in  less  degree  many  other  cities  that  might  be 
named.  Corruption  is  fairly  rushing  in  a  wave. 
But  the  pendulum  will  swing  back  again  in  time. 
All  sorts  of  proposals  are  given  as  remedies  for 
this  state  of  municipal  robbery  of  the  people.  It 
cannot  be  said  that  this  bold  peculation  of  public 
funds  is  wholly  due  to  conditions,  for  no  man  is 
obliged  by  external  force  to  steal.  The  character 
of  the  citizen  must  be  taken  into  account  also. 

Indeed  the  extravagance  and  waste  and  poor 
business  management  of  municipal  affairs  at 
present  is  appalling.  Rev.  Josiah  Strong  in  his 
"The  Twentieth  Century  City"  considers  "the 
unprecedented  and  disproportionment  develop- 
ment of  material  civilization"  to  the  neglect  of  the 
spiritual  and  moral  the  great  cause  for  decline  in 
municipal  official  honor.  In  this  statement  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  he  proposes  as  a  remedy  a  greater 
emphasis  on  man's  higher  social  instincts  and  his 
religious  nature.  His  conclusions  are  correct, 
but  the  methods  for  bringing  about  man's  higher 
development  are  not  particularly  defined. 

COMMISSION    GOVERNMENT 

Bungled  from  start  to  finish,  and  stealing  and 
169 


170  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

enlarged   budgets    and   taxes    wasted   and    raised 
higher  every  year,  it  seems  the  clock  has  struck 
and  we  should  wake  up.     A  Representative  said 
in  Congress   recently:  "Municipal  government  in 
this  country  is  going  to  the  dogs,  and  it  behooves 
the  American  people  to  begin  working  out  a  rem- 
edy.    At  present  the  commission  plan  of  govern- 
ment seems  to  offer  the  best  promise  of  reform." 
This  form  of  civic  government  has  been  tried  in 
Des  Moines,  Iowa,   and  elsewhere,  with  consider- 
able success.    In  brief,  the  commission  plan  is  sim- 
ple and  direct,  actuated  by  the  continuous  force 
of    public    opinion.       Originating    in    Galveston, 
Texas,  the  plan  was  made  more  effective  in  Des 
Moines.     The  city's  business  is  divided  into  five 
departments,   and   five   men   elected   and   held   re- 
sponsible for  the  administration  of  these  depart- 
ments, one  at  the  head  of  each.     Des  Moines  also 
added  three  provisions:  the  Recall,  by  which  any 
or  all  of  the  heads  of  departments  may  be  ousted; 
the  Initiative,  by  which  a  measure  may  be  passed 
by  popular  vote;  and  the  Referendum,  by  which 
any  action  may  be  vetoed.     A  direct  vote  of  the 
people  controls   the   franchises.      It  must  not  be 
forgotten    that    men    move,    not    the    movement 
moves.     Officials  under  the  public  eye,  under  any 
other  platform  would  render   as  efficient  service. 
The  people  here  directly  guard  their  own  and  re- 
move the  incompetent  manager  of  their  municipal 
affairs. 

The  results  of  the  Des  Moines  experiment  were 


CITIES  A  PROBLEM  171 

the  reduction  of  crime,  the  physical  renovation  of 
the  city,  and  less  cost  for  the  achievements 
brought  about.  It  has  improved  official  honesty 
and  been  a  great  gain  to  the  public. 

PUBLIC   OWNERSHIP 

Many  city  franchises,  while  affording  much 
service  to  the  general  public,  are  too  often  but  the 
encroachment  of  corporate  greed,  and  end  in  pub- 
lic abuse.  It  is  fatuous  to  assume,  permit  it  to 
be  said  tersely,  that  to  make  the  rich  poor  will 
on  that  very  account  make  the  poor  rich.  Nor 
can  the  politician  settle  these  problems.  Public 
ownership  has  its  favorable  side,  and  also  its  op- 
posite. The  destruction  of  corporative  interests 
in  the  city,  with  human  impulses  unbound  and 
set  free,  would  not  be  a  panacea  for  civic  evils, 
while  officials  remained  free  to  devise  schemes  for 
robbing  the  public.  To  make  returns  on  invest- 
ments small  and  uncertain,  by  petty  legislative 
restrictions,  would  defeat  the  activity  of  the 
world's  great  commercial  captains  and  business 
geniuses.  Those  who  would  destroy  or  reduce 
large  fortunes,  it  is  safe  to  say,  have  had  nothing 
to  do  with  making  them.  Disqualified  by  nature 
and  habits  such  persons,  to  be  sure,  could  not 
manage  large  industrial  concerns  successfully, 
however  large  they  may  talk  about  the  business. 
No  doubt  some  public  functions  can  be  better 
managed  by  the  body  politic  through  its  agents, 
than   if  managed  by   interested   individual   enter- 


m  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

prise.  It  is  no  longer  an  experiment  for  cities  to 
own  and  conduct  street  railways,  water  supply, 
gas  industry,  electric  lighting  plants,  public  heat- 
ing plants,  and  telephone  service. 

But  municipal  ownership  is  a  form  of  pater- 
nalism, and  has  its  objections.  All  these  things 
in  the  long  run  are  but  makeshifts,  mere  treat- 
ment of  the  symptoms,  environmental  alterations, 
and  do  not  reach  the  root  of  the  matter,  the  re- 
form of  the  man,  the  renovation  of  his  nature. 
They  have  no  special  merit  as  remedial  measures, 
for  they  do  not  touch  the  causes  for  civic  ills. 
The  true  remedy  applies  to  the  home,  the  birth 
of  the  child,  the  training  of  parents  for  parent- 
age, education  of  the  child  and  qualifying  it  in 
some  trade  for  its  life  work. 

PRESENT   MASS    MIND 

The  leading  aim  of  all  combinations,  whether 
labor  or  monopolistic,  is  dominion,  but  they 
smother  the  aim  in  the  soothing,  sugar-coated 
terms  of  speech  "that  speaks  and  purposes  not," 
and  so  disguise  it  as  to  mislead  people.  Self-in- 
terested promoters  are  scarcely  to  be  expected  to 
seek  the  truth  for  truth's  sake.  And  hence  they 
are  unloosing  all  the  corrupt  influences,  like  Pan- 
dora, and  giving  license  to  the  unbridled  moral 
and  mental  inequalities  of  the  young,  who  may 
some  day  precipitate  blood,  as  has  already  been 
done,  if  they  clash  with  law  and  order.  The  mass 
mind  is  growing  toward  less  and  less  respect  for 


CITIES  A  PROBLEM  173 

present  institutions,  for  Sunday,  for  church,  for 
men  in  high  places,  and  less  and  less  faith  in  laws 
and  conditions  and  customs.  This  increasing 
want  of  respect  for  others,  for  property,  for  es- 
tablished beliefs,  is  very  bad  leaven, — as  witness 
France's  tragic  moral  and  material  revolution. 
It  is  the  human  tendency  to  split  into  tribes  and 
fragments,  to  produce  moral  Babels,  to  sow  drag- 
ons' teeth,  as  national  and  tribal  and  church  di- 
visions testify.  Python's  eggs  will  reproduce 
pythons.  No  system  of  guards  and  safety  appli- 
ances and  checks  will  ever  be  sufficient  to  prevent 
this  inharmony,  as  long  as  the  pythons  are  repro- 
duced. The  tendency  of  cosmopolitanism  is  to  alter, 
if  not  remove,  the  established  order  of  things. 
The  age  is  hurrying ;  it  is  the  speed  of  wheels  that 
is  giving  worry  to  city  councils  and  state  legisla- 
tures. The  commercialized  mind  is  without  the 
governor  of  a  sufficient  conscience;  hence  the  cor- 
ruptions of  the  day.  Grafters  are  not  good  citi- 
zens. 

That  is  an  unfriendly  spirit  that  does  not  read- 
ily support  everything  that  has  contributed  to 
make  this  the  greatest  people  on  earth,  present 
or  past.  There  is  excessive  and  exaggerated  criti- 
cism of  capital,  of  vested  rights,  of  schools,  of 
the  Bible  in  the  schools,  of  churches,  of  estab- 
lished government,  and  those  who  do  this  are 
enemies  in  spirit  to  existing  conditions  and  cus- 
toms, and  without  regarding  those  who  believe 
in  these  things,  they  would  alter  them  to  suit  their 


174  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

own  peculiar  ideas  and  customs.  Muck-raking 
for  the  purpose  of  self-exploitation  and  less  for 
correction  of  real  corruption,  is  not  to  be  ap- 
proved in  any  sense.  These  times  of  strenuosity 
and  haste  naturally  lead  to  excesses  and  errors, 
and  the  intemperate  language  of  the  muck-rakers 
engenders  a  hateful  feeling  which  breeds  a  pessi- 
mistic attitude  toward  all  things  in  easy  and  un- 
easy converts.  To  be  sure,  it  is  not  the  whole  of 
philosophy  to  be  either  entirely  pessimistic  or  en- 
tirely optimistic.  Usually  muck-rakers  paint 
their  own  intemperate  feelings,  their  own  state 
of  soul,  showing  their  diet  of  smut,  and  this  bene- 
fits no  one  nor  any  condition.  The  strenuosity 
of  life  has  gotten  into  the  freedom  of  speech,  and 
muck-rakers  believe  they  are  reformers  instead  of 
a  Mt.  Ida  of  voluptuous  speech, — mere  self-agi- 
tation. Emphasis  and  enthusiasm  are  noble  and 
essential  qualities,  necessary  to  conquer  success 
in  life,  but  they  should  be  guided  by  the  reason 
that  objects  to  the  injury  to  others.  The  muck- 
raking that  is  inspired  by  an  ungoverned  emo- 
tion, or  by  a  nature  that  can't  escape  the  exercise 
of  its  desire  for  offense  and  garbage  aromas, 
publishes  itself  more  than  it  does  the  evil.  The 
true  spirit  of  the  loving,  courteous  critic  is  to  do 
God's  service  to  all  men  and  be  honest  in  opinion. 
Legitimate  fault-finding  will  do  this.  The  intem- 
perate explosions  of  verbal  wrath  against  some- 
thing, without  making  any  investigation  as  to  the 
facts,  bear  in  themselves  a  warning.     Such  a  con- 


CITIES  A  PROBLEM  176 

dition  of  public  mind  is  more  to  be  dreaded  than 
the  state  of  things  against  which  it  hurls  its  an- 
athemas. This  continued  flow  of  denunciation 
after  a  while  makes  a  permanent  impression  upon 
the  younger  mind,  that  later  becomes  a  cause  of 
revolt.  The  misbranding  of  things  by  these  ver- 
bal vandals,  certainly  is  neither  an  evidence  of  a 
reformer  nor  an  honest  man,  and  further  it  mani- 
fests nothing  of  the  genuine  patriot.  Epithet-en- 
gendered hate  is  a  difficult  thing  to  deal  with,  be- 
cause its   reason  is  poor-bom  and  degenerate. 

MENACE  IN    CONGESTED   CITIES 

Those  who  assemble  in  congested  quarters  of 
a  town,  do  not  find  the  environment  wholly  un- 
congenial. If  it  is  measurably  true  that  every 
one  finds  his  congenial  environment,  then  these 
crowded  people  in  miserable  dens  (and  the  mis- 
erableness  of  a  den  is  a  comparative  matter) 
would  be  Pariahs  out  of  their  class.  Every  one 
seeks  his  level.  He  can  go  no  higher  than  the 
force  in  him  propels  him  upward  and  forward. 
These  people  prefer  proximity  to  beautification, 
because  their  ideals  are  low.  Much  of  the  senti- 
ment against  the  corruptions  of  contact  is  that  of 
people  who  compare  conditions  to  their  own  as 
the  standard  of  measurement.  But  this  is  not 
saying  that  the  poor  do  not  need  help,  or  cannot 
be  helped. 

MOKALS    OF    CHRIST 

The  Christian  churches  are  practically  of  one 


176  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

opinion  in  respect  to  the  serious  problem  of  mass 
immorality.  Institutional  concerns  can  do  much 
for  those  massed  in  menacing  multitudes.  The 
betterment  of  these  people  is  to  be  brought  about 
by  educational  and  Christianizing  influences,  as 
well  as  by  social  uplift.  These  people  are  suscep- 
tible of  very  much,  and  deprived  of  the  oppor- 
tunity of  initiation  as  they  believe,  they  lie  down 
in  their  assumed  helplessness  and  wait  for  the 
touch  of  the  better  to  come  to  them.  They  suffer 
for  the  want  of  touch  with  the  good  and  true. 

INTERNATIONAL  PEACE 

Most  international  entanglements  can  be  traced 
to  differences  about  trade.  The  people  are  pro- 
ducers of  that  which  nations  exchange  between 
themselves.  Hence  the  people  indirectly  become 
involved  in  international  disputes.  With  possible 
international  legal  courts  in  view,  or  a  world 
court,  as  it  should  be  called,  all  international  dif- 
ferences could  be  arbitrated  and  a  pacific  adjust- 
ment effected.  Enormous  naval  and  military 
equipments,  which  impose  an  almost  intolerable 
tax  burden  upon  the  people,  would  become  use- 
less. It  would  be  a  more  reasonable  way  of  settling 
differences  than  by  the  sword.  The  Israelites, 
when  their  burden  of  making  bricks  without  straw 
became  unbearable  longer,  instead  of  making  war, 
peaceably  fled  from  their  Egyptian  oppressors. 
Tranquility  brings  the  spirit  of  benevolence  toward 
others.     The  human  butcher  is  a  devil  incarnate. 


CITIES  A  PROBLEM  177 

Peace  affords  the  opportunity  for  education,  ele- 
vates the  standard  of  citizenship,  and  displaces 
the  martial  spirit  with  peace  laleges  such  as  Hor- 
ace sang.  Peace  saves  money,  blood,  broken 
hearts;  bequeaths  quiet  homes;  encourages  peace- 
ful industries  and  plenty;  and  beats  swords  into 
plowshares  and  pruning  hooks.  War  exploits 
labor  and  impoverishes  the  toiler  and  desolates  the 
land.  The  sentiment  is  growing  for  national  dis- 
armament, and  that  day  must  come  sooner  or 
later.  The  people  will  not  always  submit  to  pay 
the  bankrupting  bills  of  war,  though  war  is  a 
gratification  in  man  of  his  savage  element,  which 
has  within  him  its  counterpart,  peace. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  CHURCH 

Does  church-going  make  better  citizens? 

Is  the  church  doing  all  it  can  to  induce  men  to 
attend  its  services  and  save  themselves? 

Is  the  church  effete  and  obsolete? 

The  general  answer  to  these  questions  is: — In 
God  alone,  in  the  church  his  means  to  an  end,  is 
the  world  to  be  redeemed. 

As  long  as  God's  hand  is  over  his  church  and  as 
long  as  men  are  to  be  saved — and  that  will  be  till 
the  end  of  time — ^the  church  cannot  become  obso- 
lete. 

Through  the  shortcomings  of  human  effort 
perhaps  the  church,  speaking  generally,  is  not  do- 
ing all  it  can  to  induce  men  to  attend  upon  divine 
ministrations.  But  no  unbiased  mind  will  charge 
the  church  with  the  misdoings  of  some  of  its  un- 
repentant members  whose  names  by  mistake  are 
on  the  church  roster.  The  church  is  doing  a  noble 
part  to  keep  itself  pure  and  unspotted,  and  its 
efforts  to  lead  men  to  Christ  are  great  and  many 
and  continuous. 

What  church  attendance  does  for  a  man  will  ap- 
pear as  we  proceed. 

WORK  OF   THE  CHURCH 

In  the  first  place,  America  has  now  become  the 
home  of  the  Gospel.     It  is  no  small  blessing  to  be 
a  dweller  in  a  land  of  Christian  churches. 
178 


THE  CHURCH  179 

The  church  trains  the  conscience,  an  essential 
and  practical  matter.  An  unjust  manufacturer, 
merchant  or  corporation  has  not  a  well-trained 
conscience. 

All  laws  that  aim  to  curb  or  suppress  saloons 
are  due  to  the  church's  influence  and  effort,  and 
this  work  is  justified  also  from  an  economical 
view. 

The  church  strengthens  a  man  against  tempta- 
tion. The  greatest  work  of  the  church  is  the  build- 
ing of  character. 

Man  is  more  than  an  animal,  and  needs  instruc- 
tion for  his  moral  self.  Man  needs  more  than  util- 
itarian benefits,  more  than  that  afforded  by  ma- 
terialism. 

The  Christian  church  is  evangelizing  the  world. 
She  is  placing  the  Bible  in  every  land,  in  every 
tongue.  Her  softening,  peaceful,  influences  are 
making  men  better,  whether  they  know  it  or  not, 
for  no  one  can  dwell  in  the  shadow  of  the  church 
and  not  be  better  for  it.  She  has  given  to  man  a 
Christian  civilization,  the  benefits  of  which  cannot 
be  estimated  in  words.  The  glory  of  the  church 
is  in  her  beneficent  purpose  to  save  men  and  make 
them  better  citizens  and  better  fathers  and  better 
husbands. 

THE    WORKINGMAn's    GRIEVANCE    AGAINST 
THE   CHURCH 

The  workingman  thinks  he  has  a  grievance 
against  the  church,  and  this  attitude  of  mind  bodes 


180  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

no  good  to  him  or  the  future  citizen  who  may  pin 
his  faith  to  the  justice  of  union  labor  movements. 

As  they  say  it,  they  have  no  Sunday  clothes 
good  enough,  and  still  they  have  feelings  as  well 
as  anybody.  They  scarcely  accuse  the  church  for 
making  the  conditions  hard  for  them  to  live  and 
being  unable  to  buy  good  clothes.  Their  attitude 
is  that  the  church  has  become  too  starchy,  not  too 
good  for  them, — a  question  of  sartorial  character. 

They  are  not  recognized  at  church  on  a  social 
equality.  It  must  be  noted  here  that  the  church 
is  not  a  close  corporation,  nor  does  it  ostracise  any 
one  because  of  his  own  self-classification.  They 
believe  in  Christ  and  his  teachings,  would  like  to 
find  a  welcome  and  a  home-like,  fellow  feeling,  but 
the  church  seems  too  cold  for  them. 

They  aver  that  they  see  their  boss  six  days  in 
the  week,  and  do  not  want  to  see  him  on  the 
seventh. 

The  church  they  classify  as  a  rich  man's  insti- 
tution, saying  Jesus  was  on  the  side  of  the  poor, 
but  the  churches  are  on  the  side  of  the  rich. 

The  church  does  nothing  for  them,  they  com- 
plain, gives  them  no  work,  nor  ministers  to  their 
wants  in  times  of  need  or  of  sickness. 

There  are  uptown  churches  and  downtown 
churches,  and  missions  for  the  poor  to  be  shoved 
off  in.  Not  being  good  enough  to  be  associated 
with  on  week  days,  why  should  they  seek  the 
church  people  on  Sunday.? 

They  stand  aloof,  on  the  ground  that  the  church 


THE  CHURCH  181 

does  not  meet  them,  does  not  concern  itself  for 
them,  doesn't  take  their  side  in  the  fight  for  a  bet- 
ter condition,  but  aligns  itself  on  the  side  of  the 
"money  power." 

HIS   NEED   OF   THE   CHURCH 

The  element  of  fairness  is  absent  from  the  accu- 
sation that  the  church  is  to  be  blamed  for  his  neg- 
lect to  attend.  He  needs  the  church  for  its  edu- 
cating force,  for  its  elevating  power,  for  the  good 
standing  in  which  it  places  him,  for  the  character 
it  gives  him,  for  the  friends  it  makes  him,  for  the 
correction  of  any  unbiased  views  he  may  have,  for 
the  hope  it  extends  to  him,  for  the  alteration  of  the 
thought  that  the  church  does  not  care  for  him 
and  regards  him  as  of  no  particular  value.  He 
needs  the  church  as  a  defense.  To  crush  the  rich 
man,  a  brother  in  the  highest  sense,  would  be  a 
fatal  mistake.  He  needs  the  church  because  it  sus- 
tains him  against  his  worst  enemy,  the  saloon.  The 
church  makes  him  a  better,  steadier  producer,  and 
a  more  industrious  citizen.  Cut  off  from  the 
church,  the  power  house,  as  it  were,  he  will  give 
less  moral  strength  to  his  son, — make  him  a  moral 
consumptive, —  and  he  perforce  less  to  his  son, 
and  so  on  with  far-reaching  tendency. 

The  church  throws  restraints  around  the  chil- 
dren and  makes  them  respectable  and  self-respect- 
ing. Homes  without  restraints  cause  children  to 
go  away.  The  church  then  puts  around  young 
and  old  the  needed  restraints  upon  licensed  im- 
pulses. 


182  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

Nevertheless,  the  church's  influence  reaches  into 
institutions  that  the  man  on  the  outside  will  not 
recognize.  And  what  would  he  be  in  a  place  with 
no  church  influences? 

CHURCH    AND    UNIONS 

It  is  regrettable  that  so  small  a  per  cent,  of 
laboring  people  are  in  the  church,  having  lost 
faith  in  its  character  and  force  for  good.  The 
church  and  the  union  have  a  magnificent  oppor- 
tunity to  work  together  for  good  and  the  extension 
of  brotherly  love.  The  church  and  the  laboring 
man,  in  the  plan  of  the  Infinite  Father,  are  one. 
Therefore  they  should  stand  together,  or  they  will 
fall  together.  If  the  church  loses  its  sense  of  hu- 
manity and  its  brotherly  feeling  for  all  men,  its 
day  of  good  influences  is  at  an  end.  And  if  labor 
loses  sight  of  the  moral  needs  and  purposes  of  life, 
it  cannot  survive.  The  sense  of  suspicion,  bitter- 
ness, arrogance,  and  hate  between  men,  originating 
in  differences  of  situation  and  character  of  pur- 
suits, must  be  destroyed.  The  estrangement  of 
labor  from  the  church  inevitably  means  the  degra- 
dation and  injury  of  both.  They  should  co-op- 
erate in  the  social  aims  of  Christ,  and  cultivate 
more  of  Christ's  spirit  of  charity  and  love  and  for- 
giveness. 

The  reason  why  laboring  people  despise  the  rich 
Christian  men  is  not  far  to  seek.  Many  of  the 
rich  are  in  the  church,  so  laboring  people  avoid 
the  church.     Their  method  of  logic  also  condemns 


THE  CHURCH  183 

the  principles  of  religion,  which  the  rich  men  pro- 
fess, making  no  distinction  between  the  man  and 
the  principles  he  professes.  To  them  the  man  and 
religion  are  identical.  They  misunderstand  the 
church  and  its  mission,  and  to  clear  up  this  con- 
fusion of  mind  should  be  the  aim  and  duty  of  the 
church.  The  church  needs  to  go  among  the  com- 
mon people  as  Christ  did. 

Working  people  believe  the  church  stands  aloof 
from  labor  federations,  looking  upon  them  as  a 
wrong,  and  to  keep  herself  unspotted  from  the 
world  she  shuns  the  very  appearance  of  evil. 

MASSES  HOSTILE  TO  RELIGION 

There  is  a  diiference  between  the  philosophy 
of  the  poor  and  of  the  rich.  They  have  different 
viewpoints  of  life.  Their  dreams  of  life  differ. 
The  poor  have  faith,  the  rich  have  doubts. 
The  poor  have  lost  respect  for  church  rites,  the 
rich  rejoice  in  "pride,  pomp  and  circumstance." 
The  poor  distrust  the  church,  even  when  it  brings 
gifts  and  messages  of  "peace  on  earth";  the  rich 
convert  the  church  into  a  sort  of  club  fellowship. 
Since  the  aggregate  of  one's  thoughts  constitute 
all  there  is  of  him,  the  character  of  the  thoughts 
will  determine  the  character  of  the  aggregate.  So 
the  difference  of  thought  and  viewpoint  between 
the  rich  and  the  poor  must  essentially  produce  dif- 
ferent results  in  their  lives.  Since  one  obeys  his 
thoughts,  hence  his  thoughts  become  his  salvation 
or  his  curse.     The  attitude  or  acts  of  any  one  are 


184  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

but  an  expression  of  his  thoughts.  The  conclu- 
sion is  inevitable  that  the  masses  dislike  the  church, 
for  they  do  not  go  there.  If  Solomon's  figure  may 
be  reapplied,  one  goes  often  to  see  his  lady  love. 
The  masses  do  not  go  at  all. 

The  church,  they  say,  is  no  longer  a  popular 
institution — viewed  with  disrespect.  The  magnifi- 
cence of  the  building  and  church  appointments  is 
taken  as  an  evidence  that  the  rich  own  and  "run 
it."  In  these  costly  temples  the  poor  are  stran- 
gers, have  no  welcome  except  in  form,  and  can  find 
no  "church  home."  But,  to  be  fair,  it  is  not  can- 
did to  make  the  church  responsible  for  female  dis- 
honor, drunken  sots,  corruption,  thieving,  dishon- 
esty, when  the  truth  is  that  it  is  the  only  police 
power  that  keeps  men  from  flying  at  each  other's 
throats  and  cutting  their  lives  out. 

No  benefit  can  come  to  humanity  from  any  other 
source  than  goodness,  and  this  embraces  truth, 
truth-telling,  Christ,  honesty,  purity,  justice  to 
labor  as  well  as  to  capital — ^no  warfare,  industrial 
or  social,  no  class  consciousness,  no  antagonisms. 

DUTY   OF   THE   CHURCH 

Labor  representations  have  told  ministerial  as- 
sociations, when  invited  to  address  them  in  asso- 
ciation meeting,  that  Christ  loved  the  poor  and 
lowly,  but  at  present  the  church  does  not,  for  it 
panders  to  the  wealthy  for  support.  It  is  perhaps 
not  harsh  to  reach  the  conclusion  from  this  that 
labor's  opposition  to  the  church  as  its  foe  is  due 


THE  CHURCH  185 

to  its  fight  upon  the  rich.  They  say  they  are  the 
target  for  criticism  from  pulpit  and  public. 

The  church's  work  is  Christ's  work.  Therefore 
it  must  do  as  Christ  did, — go  where  men  are,  get 
closer  in  touch  with  them,  nearer  to  those  who  bear 
the  brunt  of  the  battles  of  life,  be  more  sociable 
and  neighborly  with  them,  be  one  with  them,  be 
their  church.  Like  Paul  it  should  "become  all 
things  to  all  men,  that  it  may  by  all  means  save 
some." 

In  addition  to  the  study  of  the  Bible  the  min- 
ister must  go  forth  among  men  at  their  daily  toils 
and  study  the  questions  of  humanity  outside  of 
the  church.  For  there  are  no  "classes"  of  souls 
in  heaven.  Not  that  souls  are  "equal"  in  essence 
there,  but  that  sympathy  and  sociability  are  inter- 
changed equally.  Perhaps  "ranks"  there  are  need- 
less. If  Christ  showed  here  on  earth  a  partiality 
for  the  poor  and  antagonized  the  rich,  he  never- 
theless proved  that  he  was  the  friend  of  aU.  "For 
in  one  spirit  were  we  all  baptized  into  one  body, 
whether  Jews  or  Greeks,  whether  bond  or  free." 
Even  the  rich  man  who  was  sent  away  to  dispose 
of  his  possessions,  was  not  denied  the  benefits  of 
the  faith  because  he  was  rich.  Had  he  been,  what 
a  poor,  limited  philosophy  Christ  would  have  given 
to  all  men.  In  heaven  there  are  no  nationalities 
or  sex  distinctions;  at  least  after  the  "resurrec- 
tion they  neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  mar- 
riage." Men  must  alter  their  finite  philosophy  to 
harmonize  with  Christ's,  or  they  cannot  enter  the 
kingdom  of  heaven. 


186  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

It  is  said  the  church  is  not  philanthropic  toward 
labor.  This  is  not  true,  for  the  church  aims  at 
the  good  of  all  men.  To  be  a  mere  post-mortem 
emigration  society  is  not  the  whole  purpose  of  the 
church.  It  is  the  only  authentic  teacher  of  the  uni- 
versal prayer,  "Our  Father."  All  say  that, — let 
it  be  so.  It  will  help  to  establish  his  kingdom  on 
earth. 

BREAKERS   AHEAD 

The  church  has  not  had  an  unvarying  course 
of  progress  and  triumph  from  the  time  of  its  estab- 
lishment upon  earth  to  the  present.  But  there 
can  be  no  doubt  but  the  stone  cut  out  of  the  moun- 
tain will  in  God's  own  time  fill  all  the  earth. 

The  unhappy  sentiments  of  the  day  bear  in  them 
danger  to  the  Christian  civilization  that  has  been 
built  up  with  so  much  patience,  zeal  and  toil.  The 
laws  of  Moses  guarded  the  Jews  by  strict  enact- 
ment against  fellowship  and  marriage  with  stran- 
gers, lest  they  be  overcome  by  social  conquest. 
Though  God's  special,  pet  people,  the  Jews  were 
nevertheless  easily  induced  into  unfaith  and  idola- 
try. The  prophets  foretold  their  calamities, 
brought  on  by  their  own  wilful  estrayings.  "For 
thou  hast  forsaken  thy  people  the  house  of  Jacob, 
because  they  be  filled  with  customs  from  the  east, 
and  are  soothsayers  like  the  Philistines,  and  they 
strike  hands  with  the  children  of  strangers."  Sen- 
timent is  a  powerful  thing  in  the  alteration  of  men 
and  manners.  Corruptions  easily  steal  in,  like 
little  foxes,  and  men  depart  from  the  old  land- 
marks. 


THE  CHURCH  187 

In  another  sense  natural  decay  is  progress,  and 
the  new  enters  the  place  of  the  old  and  effete.  Cus- 
toms and  rites  serve  their  day  and  purpose  and 
are  displaced  by  those  necessary  the  next  day.  But 
the  eternal  facts  of  God  cannot  die. 

"Truth  crushed  to  earth  shall  rise  again^ — 
The  eternal  years  of  God  are  hers; 

But  Error,  wounded,  writhes  with  pain. 
And  dies  among  his  worshippers." 

There  is  lack  of  the  spirit  of  worship,  since  the 
pendulum  has  swung  back  upon  textual  criticism, 
commonly  called  "higher  criticism."  The  right 
of  private  judgment  has  made  the  "I,"  the  sub- 
jective, the  arbiter  of  destiny,  instead  of  the  "thou 
shalt,"  the  external.  The  "I"  is  exercising  its 
privilege. 

COMPETENCY  OF  THE   CHURCH 

Is  the  church  competent  and  sufficient  to  teach 
ethics  in  adequate  force  to  save  the  growing  up 
men  and  women,  since  the  schools  ignore  Biblical 
morals  out  of  respect  for  a  few  who  are  disposed 
to  disregard  the  needs  and  wishes  of  the  majority.^ 
The  effect  of  this  omission  of  the  Bible  from 
schools  is  to  loosen  the  child's  mind  from  morals, 
if  indeed  the  absence  of  moral  instruction  in  its  sus- 
ceptible period  of  life  does  not  leave  it  ignorant 
of  the  highest  and  best  force  in  life.  The  average 
age  of  conversion  is  16.3  years,  and  the  number 
coming  into  the  church  diminishes  up  to  the  age 
of  twenty-five,  where  but  two  per  cent,   make  a 


188  THE  FUTURE  CITIZEN 

decision  for  a  church  life.  Youth  is  the  seed  time 
of  life.    It  may  be  said  that  after  this  period 

"He  wears  his  faith  but  as  the  fashion  of  his  hat ; 
it  ever  changes  with  the  next  block." 

Nearly  33,000,000  persons  in  the  United  States 
are  members  of  the  religious  denominations,  or  a 
little  over  one  in  three.  The  mass  sentiment  out- 
side of  the  church  is  twice  as  great  as  that  within 
the  church.  The  contest  is  unequal,  the  danger 
great. 

NEW    COMMANDMENT 

St.  John's  new  commandment  is,  "Love  one  an- 
other." Therein  lies  the  true  remedy.  This  is 
eternal  in  its  application  and  results.  The  others, 
chiefly  relating  to  environment,  cannot  be  perma- 
nent. The  major  remedy  is  in  the  correction  of 
the  creature.  Socialism  is  not  comprehensive,  for 
it  deals  with  secondary  things,  conditions.  The 
minor  matter  of  environment  is  not  without  some 
efiicacy.  The  mistake  is  in  making  it  primary. 
To  do  that  is  at  once  to  destine  the  movement  to 
failure. 

Sentiment,  character  of  thought,  belief,  is  the 
greatest  thing  in  shaping  the  human  character,  the 
future  citizen.    As  a  man  thinks,  so  he  is. 

Some  of  the  mistakes  of  sentiment  have  been 
pointed  out,  so  that  better  manhood  and  woman- 
hood might  be  developed.  Many  other  fallacies 
not  named  here  enter  into  and  lead  men  astray. 

The  church  proclaims  the  best  and  correct  phi- 


THE  CHURCH  189 

losophy  of  life,  or  else  there  is  none  anywhere. 
Then  Pyrrho  was  correct  when  he  reasoned,  "Be- 
cause everything  is  contradictory,  everything  is 
false."     Therefore  Pyrrho's  axiom  is  false. 

Moral  manhood  is  declining,  because  so  many 
fail  to  attend  church,  where  true  manhood  and 
womanhood  is  taught.  The  future  citizen  is  not 
coming  up  to  the  level  of  the  highest  manhood. 
This,  however,  is  not  saying  that  his  opportunities 
for  mental  culture  are  not  perhaps  better  than 
ever  before  in  the  history  of  education,  but  it  is 
saying  that  he  is  not  attending  the  highest  college 
on  earth,  the  school  of  perfect  morals. 


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